copyright by chun-mei chen 2006
TRANSCRIPT
Copyright
by
Chun-Mei Chen
2006
The Dissertation Committee for Chun-Mei Chen
certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:
A Comparative Study on Formosan Phonology:
Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Committee:
________________________________ Anthony C. Woodbury, Supervisor
________________________________ Megan Crowhurst ________________________________ Elizabeth Keating ________________________________ Scott Myers ________________________________ Harvey M. Sussman
A Comparative Study on Formosan Phonology:
Paiwan and Budai Rukai
by
Chun-Mei Chen, B.A., M.A.
Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
the University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
of the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin
August 2006
To my grandmother,
with loving memory
Acknowledgements
The dissertation would not have been possible without many people. The
first big thanks go to my supervisor, Tony Woodbury. I took his Field Methods
in my first year. I was inspired by his approaches to field data and the prosody of
an unknown language. My view toward indigenous languages has been
broadened, and I have decided to be a fieldworker since early years of my study
at UT Linguistics. His encouragement for my pilot project on Austronesian
Phonology has made this dissertation possible. His sincere dedication to the
indigenous languages has deeply inspired me. Tony has been such an inspiration
that makes me leave the phonetics laboratory to collect the sounds in the field. By
staying in the field, I have learned much more than sound patterns. I would
never thank him enough for bringing me so many insightful comments and
ceaseless intellectual support. He is always ahead of the trends in the field.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to my committee members,
Harvey Sussman, Scott Myers, Megan Crowhurst, and Elizabeth Keating. Dr.
Sussman has been such a humorous and generous person that every student in
his class loves him. I took his Speech Production & Speech Perception and
Neurolinguistics, from which my view for sounds and brain has been sharpened.
I have benefited a lot from his concise elucidation of sounds. Scott has taught me
the logic for designing an experiment and the methods for empirical analysis. I
have benefited a lot from his insightful comments on my draft. Megan has
helped me always at the very right time, whenever I need relevant literature or
papers for my conference presentation or dissertation writing. I would like to
thank her for the insightful comments on my dissertation. Elizabeth Keating is a
v
linguistic anthropologist. She has offered me the methods for collecting natural
discourse data in the field and the analysis of conversation and narrative. I
would like to express my gratitude for her continuous concern for my
dissertation progress.
I owe many thanks to Dr. Björn Lindblom for his guidance of my studies
of sounds from the beginning. He has been such a great phonetician from whom
I have seen the simplest but the most beautiful pictures of sounds. He always
came out with the most efficient and scientific solution for my complicated
questions. He is not only a great researcher but also a mentor.
The research project was funded by the dissertation fellowship from the
Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange in McLean,
Virginia, USA. The fieldwork and the smooth writing processes would not have
been possible without the sufficient financial support from the foundation.
I would also like to thank the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica,
Taipei, for hosting me as a Visiting Young Scholar for six months. I have gained a
lot of research resources and the background knowledge of Formosan languages
in the institute. I am indebted to Prof. Paul Li and Prof. Elizabeth Zeitoun.
Elizabeth has read the earlier version of my draft and gave me comments. Her
routine seminars have been great chances for me to catch up the pictures of
Formosan languages. Prof. Paul Li has offered me support for field trips and
much practical fieldwork experience. He has been such a great fieldworker I
admire. His numerous fieldwork and contributions are amazing. I am also
indebted to Prof. Shigeru Tsuchida, for his sharing with me his field notes on
twenty Paiwan villages and his observation on sound change among the Paiwan
villages. I would like to express my great appreciation for his mailing stacks of
field notes from Japan to me.
vi
I would also like to thank the Phonetics Laboratory in Academia Sinica,
Taipei, for the technical support of the spectrum graphs. In addition, the
members of Formosan Archive in Academia Sinica, Kivi and Kala, have offered
me much assistance during my stay. Kivi is a native speaker of Paiwan. She has
built up the preliminary social network for my field trips to Southern Paiwan
and Budai Rukai. Xian-Hui Tang also offered me judgments on Northern Paiwan
data and the reconfirmation. Without their help, I would never have been able to
collect the field data within a short period of time. My colleague Stacy Teng from
Australian National University has been very helpful to me. She is an
experienced fieldworker in Puyuma, another Formosan language. I benefited a
lot from her sharing with me the views for field data and the useful tools for
dissertation writing.
Earlier versions of the field reports were presented at the 11th, 12th and 13en
meetings of Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA 11, AFLA 12
and AFLA 13), the Sounds Group at UT Linguistics, and Academia Sinica. I
would like to thank the participants who gave me insightful comments. All
errors and misrepresentations are of course my own responsibility.
I am deeply indebted to the informants in the Paiwan and the Budai Rukai
tribes. I would like to thank the people in the Piuma Paiwan Village for being
supportive and helpful towards me. Special thanks go to Cegaw, who made my
first field trip possible. Village head Mr. Kong has been very enthusiastic about
my fieldwork. He has screened appropriate informants for me and shown
continuous concern for my progress. I would like to thank all the informants
who have participated in my dissertation project for spending time with me,
offering me their sounds and verbal arts, and making me learn more about their
vii
languages. They have treated me more like a friend than a fieldworker. Because
of them, making field trips has been a joyful event.
I would like to thank Wen-Hua Teng and Mary Ho at UT Asian Studies
for offering me three years of TAship for my study at UT. Wen-Hua Teng has
been the most generous and considerate boss that I have ever known. I am
grateful for her continuous concern for my academic studies, dissertation writing,
future career, and personal life. I would also like to thank my colleagues at UT
Asian Studies, Shaohua Guo, Li Yang, and Ying Xiao, for their help and concern.
I am also grateful to my wonderful linguistics colleagues, Cheng-Fu Chen
and Fei Ren, also members of “Chinese gossip group”, for their moral support
and sharing. My life at UT would have been extremely monotonous without
them. I want to thank Henrietta Yang, Hsi-Yao Su, and Jiun-Shiung Wu, who are
ex-fellows at UT Linguistics, for sharing their academic experience with me. I
would like to thank Hye-Yoon Chung for her moral support. I also want to thank
Sadaf Munshi, for her help in my early writing of IRB proposal. I would like to
thank Peggy Hsieh, for being my neighbor for three years. Thanks to all the other
friends who have helped me, too many names to name.
Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
family. My parents Yu-Chen Wu and Ching-An Chen have been so supportive
all my life that I would never thank them enough. My sisters Yi-Jing Chen and
Mei-Chao Chen, brother Yan-Ming Chen and brother-in-law Jeng-Farn Lee have
been very understanding during my writing of dissertation. Many thanks go to
them for bringing so much moral support and entertainment to me. Finally, I
would like to express my greatest appreciation to my husband, Ying-Chiuan Lin,
for holding me ups and downs, for his inexhaustible support and love. I would
not have done this without him.
viii
A Comparative Study on Formosan Phonology:
Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Publication No. ____________
Chun-Mei Chen, Ph.D.
The University of Texas at Austin, 2006
Supervisor: Anthony C. Woodbury
This study provides a detailed description and analysis of phonology of
two Formosan languages and further compares the phonological constraints and
prosodic structures in the languages. Formosan languages, nearly half of which
have become extinct in the past two centuries, are the aboriginal languages of
Taiwan. They belong to the Austronesian language family. Paiwan and Budai
Rukai were selected for their geographical distribution and genetic classification.
None of the existing field reports bear on both systemic phonetics and phonology
of Formosan languages. Accentual patterns from Formosan languages have
become essential for the reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian stress. In this
ix
study, segmental phonology, phonetic representations of consonants and vowels,
sound change, and prosodic structures such as word stress, phrasal stress, word-
level pitch accent, and sentence-level intonation of Paiwan and Budai Rukai were
documented, analyzed, constructed and compared.
The distribution of pitch accent in imperative construction and face-to-face
interaction has shown the significance of prosody in Paiwan. Boundary tones are
important indices for the syntactic types of sentences in Paiwan. On the other
hand, vowel length is phonemic, and syllable weight does affect the assignment
of stress in Budai Rukai. The interaction between vowel length at penult and
stress patterns in Budai Rukai has provided evidence for the argument of
contrastive stress in the Proto-Austronesian language. The dissertation has
provided two more indicators in Formosan languages that reflect the contrastive
stress in Proto-Austronesian roots: syllable extrametricality in Budai Rukai and
final stress subject to schwa penult in Central Paiwan. The documentation of
prosodic patterns has become a prerequisite for the preservation of ancestral
accent of the indigenous languages. Historical reconstruction of cognates and
synchronic phonological features have provided evidence for the proposal that
the innovations shared by Paiwan and Budai Rukai are due to recent contact.
x
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………..xvii
LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………..xix
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………..1
1.1 Background Information of Paiwan and Budai Rukai………………….4
1.2 Importance of Documentation of Prosody.………………………………8
1.3 Theoretical Frameworks Adopted for Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Phonology…………………………………………………………………..10
1.4 Organization of the Dissertation…………………………………………16
CHAPTER TWO: PHONOLOGY OF PAIWAN…..………………………………..20
2.1 Thumbnail Sketch of Paiwan Morphology……………………………...24
2.1.1 Independent Morphemes…………………………………………..25
2.1.1.1 Primary Nouns………………………………………………27
2.1.1.2 Verb Stems…………………………………………………...28
2.1.1.3 Stative Verb Stems as Adjectives…………………………..29
2.1.1.4 Particles………………………………………………………29
2.1.2 Bound Forms………………………………………………………...30
2.1.2.1 Ligatures……………………………………………………...30
2.1.2.2 Pronouns……………………………………………………..31
2.1.2.3 Prefixing……………………………………………………...32
2.1.2.4 Suffixing……………………………………………………...34
2.1.2.5 Infixing………………………………………………………..35
2.1.2.6 Circumfixing…………………………………………………35
2.1.2.7 Focus………………………………………………………….36
2.1.2.8 Reduplication………………………………………………...37
xi
2.1.3 Word Classes………………………………………………………...38
2.1.4 Compounds………………………………………………………….41
2.2 Syllable Structure …………………………………………………….…...41
2.3 Consonants…………………………………………………………………45
2.3.1 Consonant Inventory ……………………………………………….45
2.3.2 Allophones of Consonants………………………………………….60
2.3.2.1 Stops…………………………………………………….…….61
2.3.2.2 Nasals…………………………………………………………63
2.3.2.3 Fricatives………………………………………………….….64
2.3.2.4 Affricates………………………………………………….….66
2.3.2.5 Liquids…………………………………………………….….67
2.4 Vowels……………………………………………………………………...69
2.4.1 Vowel Inventory……………………………………………………..69
2.4.2 Allophones of Vowels………………………………………………72
2.4.3 Glide Formation……………………………………………………..75
2.5 Stress………………………………………………………………………..77
2.5.1 Distribution of Stress………………………………………………..77
2.5.2 Stress Patterns in Central Paiwan………………………………….80
2.5.3 Stress Patterns in Northern and Southern Paiwan………………83
2.6 Morphophonemics………………………………………………………...90
2.6.1 Unstressed Vowel Deletion…………………………………………90
2.6.2 Alternation of Vowels and Affixes…………………………………92
2.6.3 Alternation between Glide /w/ and Fricative /v/………………94
2.6.4 Reduplication…………………………………………………………97
2.7 The Phonological Phrase…………………………………………………101
2.8 Orthography and Transcription………………………………………...105
xii
CHAPTER THREE: PHONETIC VARIATION OF PAIWAN……………………109
3.1 Acoustic Description of Paiwan Stops………………………………….111
3.2 Phonetic Representations of Paiwan Vowel Segments……………….118
3.3 Stressed Vowels…………………………………………………………...123
3.4 Synchronic Varieties and Diachronic Sound Change…………………130
3.4.1 Phonetic Varieties of Paiwan………………………………………130
3.4.2 Historical Sound Change…………………………………….…….137
CHAPTER FOUR: PROSODIC STRUCTURE OF PAIWAN..……………………140
4.1 Review of Prosody Issues………………………………………………..143
4.1.1 Prosodic Hierarchy…………………………………………………143
4.1.2 Phonology-Syntax Connection…………………………………….146
4.1.3 Prosody-Narrative Interface……………………………………….149
4.2 Word-Level Pitch Accent in Paiwan……………………….…………...151
4.2.1 Imperative Accent………………………………….……………….153
4.2.2 Pragmatic Accent…………………………………………………...161
4.2.2.1 Accent in Address Forms…………………….…………….161
4.2.2.2 Emphatic Degree Accent…………………………………...164
4.3 Sentence-Level Prosody in Paiwan……………………………………..167
4.3.1 Derivation from Phrasal Stress to Segmental Prosody………….167
4.3.2 Descriptive Paiwan Intonation…………………………………….170
4.3.3 The Mapping between Syntax and Phonology in Paiwan……...181
4.4 Prosody in Paiwan Oral Narrative and Discourse…………………….185
4.4.1 Prosody in Paiwan Oral Narrative ……………………………….185
4.4.2 Prosody in Paiwan Natural Discourse……………………………188
4.5 Prosody in Linguistic Documentation………………………………….189
CHAPTER FIVE: PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF BUDAI RUKAI …….191
xiii
5.1 Thumbnail Sketch of Budai Rukai Morphology………………………195
5.1.1 Independent Morphemes…………………………………….…...196
5.1.1.1 Primary Nouns……………………………………………..197
5.1.1.2 Verb Stems………………………………………………….197
5.1.1.3 Stative Verb Stems as Adjectives…………………………198
5.1.1.4 Particles……………………………………………………..198
5.1.2 Bound Forms……………………………………………………….199
5.1.2.1 Prefixes……………………………………………………...199
5.1.2.2 Suffixes……………………………………………………...201
5.1.2.3 Infixes…………………………………………………….…201
5.1.2.4 Circumfixes……………………………………….………...202
5.1.2.5 Multiple Affixes………………………………….…………203
5.1.2.6 Construction Markers……………………………………...203
5.1.2.7 Pronouns……………………………………………………205
5.1.2.8 Focus……………………………………………….………..206
5.1.3 Lexical Categories………………………………………………….207
5.1.3.1 Word Classes……………………………………………….207
5.1.3.2 Reduplication……………………………………………….208
5.1.4 Compounds and Loans……………………………………………210
5.2 Syllable Structure………………………………………………………...211
5.3 Consonants………………………………………………………………..218
5.3.1 Consonant Inventory………………………………………………218
5.3.2 Allophones of Consonants………………………………………...226
5.3.2.1 Fricatives……………………………………………………227
5.3.2.2 Affricates……………………………………………………230
5.4 Vowels…………………………………………………………………….231
xiv
5.4.1 Vowel Inventory……………………………………………………231
5.4.2 Allophones of Vowels……………………………………………..237
5.5 Segmental Phonetics …………………………………………………….242
5.5.1 Acoustic Description of Voiceless Stops…………………………242
5.5.2 Acoustic Descriptive of Vowels…………………………………..245
5.6 Stress………………………………………………………………………249
5.6.1 Distribution of Stress………………………………………………250
5.6.2 Stress Patterns in Budai Rukai……………………………………254
5.6.3 Implications for PAN Stress………………………………………259
5.7 Morphophonemics……………………………………………………….262
5.7.1 Alternations between Glides and Fricatives………….…………262
5.7.2 Reduplication……………………………………………………….264
5.8 Orthography and Transcription………………………………………...267
CHAPTER SIX: PROSODY OF BUDAI RUKAI …………………………………..271
6.1 Word Stress of Budai Rukai………………………………………….….272
6.1.1 Contact Stress Patterns…………………………………………….272
6.1.2 Phonetic Representations of Budai Stress……………………….276
6.2 Word-Level Pitch Accent in Budai Rukai……………………………...283
6.2.1 Regional Pitch Accent ……………………………………………..283
6.2.2 Imperative Pitch Accent…………………….……………………..286
6.3 Intonational Phonology of Budai Rukai……………………………….288
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PAIWAN AND BUDAI
RUKAI ………………………………………………………...299
7.1 Evidence from Segments………………………………………………...303
7.1.1 Consonants………………………………………………………….303
7.1.2 Vowel Distribution………………………………………………...306
xv
7.1.3 Phonological Constraints on the Two Languages………………309
7.1.4 Implications for Historical Reconstruction……………………...313
7.2 Evidence from Prosody………………………………………………….315
7.2.1 Stress Patterns………………………………………………………315
7.2.2 Pitch Accent………………………………………………………...318
7.2.3 Implications for Proto-Austronesian Stress……………………..319
7.3 Cognates and Loans……………………………………………………...322
7.4 Language Contact in the Tribes………………………………………...329
CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUDING REMARKS………………………………….333
8.1 Significance of the Study………………………………………………...333
8.2 Language Continuum…………………………………………………...336
8.3 Further Studies…………………………………………………………...339
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………342
VITA……………………………………………………………………………………355
xvi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Central Paiwan Consonants………….………………………….………...45
Table 2.2: Northern Paiwan Consonants…………………………………………….47
Table 2.3: Southern Paiwan Consonants……………………………………………..49
Table 2.4: The Correspondence of Paiwan Phonemes……………………………...49
Table 2.5: Words illustrating the consonants of Paiwan…………………………...50
Table 2.6: Distinctive Features of Paiwan Consonants……………………………..56
Table 2.7: Paiwan Consonant Distribution…………………………………………..58
Table 2.8: Summary of Paiwan Vowel Characteristics……………………………..69
Table 2.9: Words illustrating the vowels of Paiwan………………………………...70
Table 2.10: Consonants of the Paiwan Written System…………………………...107
Table 2.11: Vowels of the Paiwan Written System………………………………...107
Table 3.1: Words for VOT investigation in Paiwan stop consonants……………112
Table 3.2: Words exemplifying contrasts among Paiwan vowels………………..118
Table 3.3: Mean formant frequencies for Paiwan male and female speakers…..120
Table 4.1: Paradigm of Pronouns……………………………………………………162
Table 5.1: Case Markers of Budai Rukai……………………………………………204
Table 5.2: Budai Rukai Consonants…………………………………………………218
Table 5.3: Words illustrating the consonants of Budai Rukai…………………….220
Table 5.4: Distinctive Features of Budai Rukai Consonants……………………...224
Table 5.5: Distribution of Budai Rukai Consonants……………………………….224
Table 5.6: Summary of Budai Rukai Vowel Characteristics……………………...232
Table 5.7: Words illustrating the vowels of Budai Rukai…………………………233
Table 5.8: Words for VOT investigation in Budai Rukai stop consonants……...243
Table 5.9: Words exemplifying contrasts among Budai Rukai vowels………….245
Table 5.10: Consonants of the Rukai Written System……………………………..269
xvii
Table 5.11: Vowels of the Rukai Written System…………………………………..270
Table 7.1: Place of articulation of stops and fricative in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
………………………………………………………………………………303
Table 7.2: Restriction of Weak Schwa in Paiwan and Budai Rukai……………...308
Table 7.3: Margin complexity in Paiwan and Budai Rukai……………………….311
Table 7.4: Major sound change in Paiwan and Budai Rukai……………………..313
Table 7.5: Constraint ranking for edge alignment in Paiwan and Budai Rukai..317
Table 7.6: Constraint ranking for penultimate stress in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
.……………………………………………………………………………...318
Table 7.7: Contact languages in the tribal communities…………………………..331
Table 7.8: Types of contact phonology in Paiwan and Budai Rukai………….…331
xviii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1: The Austronesian Family Tree Proposed by Blust (1977)……………...2
Figure 1.2: The Uppermost Nodes of the Austronesian Genealogical Tree……….2
Figure 1.3: Internal Relationship of the Rukai Dialects……………………………...5
Figure 1.4: Distribution of the Formosan Languages………………………………..7
Figure 2.1: The Paiwan Villages Investigated in the Current Study……………...22
Figure 3.1: Mean VOT of Northern Paiwan stops…………………………………115
Figure 3.2: Mean VOT of Central and Southern Paiwan stops…………………..116
Figure 3.3: Example spectrogram of stop c in the word vuc ‘squirrel’………….117
Figure 3.4: Formant Plot for Female Paiwan Speakers……………………………121
Figure 3.5: Formant Plot for Male Paiwan Speakers………………………………130
Figure 3.6: Comparison of Vowel Length in Paiwan……………………………...124
Figure 3.7: Durations of Stressed Vowels in Northern and Central Paiwan……125
Figure 3.8: Vowel Length in the word tatáqan ‘grindstone’……………………..127
Figure 3.9: Pitch Tracks of the word tatáqan ‘grindstone’………………………..128
Figure 3.10: Intensity in the word tatáqan ‘grindstone’…………………………..129
Figure 4.1: Pitch track of the prosodic word mudian ‘face’……………………...153
Figure 4.2: Pitch Track of the Word kánu ‘(You) Eat!’……………………………..155
Figure 4.3: Imperative pitch accent in the word supu ‘(You) Count!’……………156
Figure 4.4: Imperative pitch accent in the utterance vni ‘(We) Buy!’………...161
Figure 4.5: Pitch Contrast of vuuvuu ‘old’ and vuuvuu ‘very old’…………166
Figure 4.6: Pitch Track of the interrogative phrase manu udo ‘or noodles’…….169
Figure 4.7: Pitch tracks of High and Low boundary tones in timau mamazian
……………………………………………………………………………...171
xix
Figure 4.8: Pitch Track of ‘He is a chieftain, isn’t he?’.……………………………173
Figure 4.9: Pitch Track of ‘He is not a chieftain.’…………………………………..173
Figure 4.10: Pitch Track of ‘Is he a chieftain or a village head?’………………….175
Figure 4.11: Pitch Track of ‘How to walk to the village head’s house?’………...177
Figure 5.1: Budai Rukai tribes investigated in the current study..………………195
Figure 5.2: Mean VOTs of Budai Rukai Voiceless Stops………………………….244
Figure 5.3: Formant Plot for Female Budai Rukai Speakers……………………...247
Figure 5.4: Formant Plot for Male Budai Rukai Speakers………………………...248
Figure 6.1: Comparison of Stressed Penult and Unstressed Final……………….279
Figure 6.2: Comparison of Stressed Antepenult and Unstressed Penult………..280
Figure 6.3: Comparison of Stressed Antepenult and Unstressed Final…………281
Figure 6.4: Comparison of Stressed Antepenult and Unstressed Initial………...281
Figure 6.5: Pitch tracks of three stress variation tokens in Budai Rukai………...282
Figure 6.6: Pitch track of the regional accent HL in túuku ‘chest’………………..285
Figure 6.7: Pitch tracks of Budai declarative and interrogative ‘he is a chieftain’
……………………………………………………………………………..290
Figure 6.8: Pitch track of the imperative negation ara si-asipi…………………….297
Figure 7.1: Tsuchida’s (1976) proposal of the genetic relationship between Rukai
and Tsou………………………………………………………………….300
Figure 7.2: A Classification of Southern Formosan Languages………………….300
Figure 7.3: Paiwan and Rukai in the Austronesian Family Tree…………………301
xx
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Who cares when a language dies? Why are our languages important to
you? Our kids are not saying these words, and why do you want to learn? I was
being inquired about these questions over and over again on my fieldwork trips.
Language endangerment is a serious concern to which more and more linguists
have paid their attention. Because of the very rich linguistic diversity, and
because of the enormous social and cultural variation, the concern about
language endangerment is centered. Formosan languages, nearly half of which
have become extinct in the past two centuries, are the aboriginal languages of
Taiwan. They belong to the Austronesian language family.
This study provides a detailed description and analysis of phonology of
Formosan languages, and further compares the phonological constraints and
prosodic structures in the languages. Two languages, Paiwan and Budai Rukai,
are selected for their geographical distribution and classification within the
Austronesian language family. From the perspective of Proto-Austonesian (PAN)
reconstruction, Paiwan (66,000 speakers) and Rukai (10,000 speakers) represent
one or two subgroups under the Austronesian genetic trees proposed by Blust
(1977, 1999) and Ross (2002). Their genetic trees (Blust 1977, 1999; Ross 2002) give
the Formosan languages considerable significance in the reconstruction of Proto-
Austonesian language. Under the nodes represented in their trees, as shown in
Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2, the Formosan languages represent a number of
primary Austronesian subgroups (up to nine), whereas other Austronesian
languages outside Taiwan belong to a single subgroup. This implies Taiwan may
be the oldest area where the Proto-Austronesian forms are preserved. The study
1
of Formosan languages may have contributions to the reconstruction of Proto-
Austronesian (PAN) language.
Austronesian
Atayalic Tsouic Paiwanic Malayo-Polynesian (MP)
Western MP Central MP Eastern MP
Figure 1.1: The Austronesian Family Tree Proposed by Blust (1977)
Proto-Austronesian (PAN)
Formosan subgroups Proto Malayo-Polynesian (PMP)
Western Proto-Central/Eastern
Malayo-Polynesian subgroups Malayo-Polynesian
Figure 1.2: The Uppermost Nodes of the Austronesian Genealogical Tree
(Ross 2002; after Blust 1977)
While the hypotheses of Austronesian subgrouping are still under
dispute, accentual patterns from Formosan languages have become essential for
the reconstruction of PAN stress (cf. Wolff 1993; Zorc 1993). Although
government textbooks of Formosan languages with segmental charts and texts,
and preliminary grammar books of these languages have been published (cf.
Series of Formosan Languages 2000), none of the existing field reports bear on
both systematic phonetics and phonology of the diverse aboriginal languages.
Maddieson (2001) has pointed out that the majority of field reports on languages
2
give rather minimal details on their phonetic properties, sometimes nothing
more than a list of symbols. Though the phonological inventories of Paiwan and
Budai Rukai have been constructed in recent work (Li 1977a, 1977b; Ho 1976,
1977; Chang 2000; Zeitoun 2000; Hsin 2001, 2003; Pulaluyan 2002), it varies from
one fieldwork documentation to another. Furthermore, most of the existing
documentation provides little empirical phonetic evidence for the phonological
patterns, not to mention stress and sentence-level prosody or above.
According to the Ethnologue report1, Austronesian tribal people are less
than 2% of the population in Taiwan. In other words, only 2% (or less) of the
population in Taiwan speaks Austronesian languages, though 14 Austronesian
languages are still spoken on this island. It has been reported on the Ethnologue
website that some Austronesian languages in Taiwan are nearly extinct. Alhough
the languages such as Paiwan and Rukai in the current project are not extinct,
they are threatened. The Paiwan and Rukai languages are the minority languages
in Taiwan and currently losing their younger speaker population. It is clear that
the documentation of Formosan languages has become an urgent issue. This
dissertation aims to document and preserve both segmental and prosodic
components of the two Formosan languages: Paiwan and Budai Rukai.
Synchronic phonological distinctiveness and constraints have a bearing on the
reconstruction of Proto-Paiwan and Proto-Rukai, and the relationship between
the two languages has implications for the reconstruction of the Proto-
Austronesian language.
Section 1.1 is the background information of the two languages, Paiwan
and Budai Rukai. Section 1.2 addresses the importance of including prosodic
components in linguistic documentation. Section 1.3 reviews theoretical
1 See http://www.ethnologue.com.
3
frameworks of phonology that are proper and adopted for the description of
Paiwan and Budai Rukai phonology in later chapters. Section 1.4 presents the
organization of the dissertation.
1.1 Background Information of Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Among the aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, the Paiwan tribe has a
comparatively large population, only outnumbered by the Amis and Atayal
tribes. The Paiwan people live in the mountain areas 500-1200 meters above sea
level, which cover Pingtung County and several small villages of Taitung
County. Ho (1978) prefers to divide the Paiwan dialects into two: ‘t’ vs. ‘tj’
dialects, and phonetic or phonemic variation has been found even in areas where
the merger between t/tj and d/dj was reported. Within the Pinigtung County,
Budai Rukai is right adjacent to the Paiwan aborigines. Dialectal features were
not only found in Paiwan but also in Rukai. The Rukai language is divided into
six dialects: Tanan, Budai, Labuan, Tona, Maga, and Mantauran. Linguistically,
Tanan, Budai, and Labuan form one subgroup, while Tona and Maga form
another (cf. Li 1977a; Hsin 2003). These two subgroups are to some extent
mutually unintelligible (cf. Li 1977a). Mantauran differs from both groups
though Zeitoun (1997) contends that it is more related to the Tanan-Labuan
subgroup. Li (1977a, 1995) proposes the internal relationship of these dialects, as
shown in Figure 1.3.
The works done by Li (1973, 1975, 1977a, 1977b) has had tremendous
influence on subsequent investigations. His studies cover cognates in individual
dialects and comprise dialectal comparison. Hsin (2003) conducts fieldwork in
Maga Rukai and finds that Maga Rukai dialect shows a number of phonological
4
characteristics that are unique among the Rukai dialects. This indicates dialectal
features play an important role in the analysis of Rukai phonology.
Rukai
BTL MTM
TL MT M
Budai Tanan Labuan Maga Tona Mantauran
Figure 1.3: Internal Relationship of the Rukai Dialects (Li 1977a, 1995)
In terms of phonological change, Li (1995) claims that Budai Rukai is the
most conservative. Drastic sound changes have taken place in Mantauran, and to
a lesser extent in Mega. The position of Rukai in the Formosan language family is
still controversial. Under the classification of Dyen (1965) and Ferrell (1969),
Rukai is considered a division of the Paiwanic branch, mainly based on the
evidence from lexical comparison. Ho (1983) and Li (1995) hold the traditional
view that it is one of the Paiwanic languages, while the other scholar Tsuchida
(1976) believes that Rukai is closer to Tsou. As echo vowels are developed in
Rukai as well as the Tsouic dialects but not attested in any other Formosan
languages, Tsou was chosen in Hsin’s (2000) Maga Rukai study for comparison.
Hsin (2000) argues that some similarities shared by Tsou and Maga Rukai are not
commonly found in the other Formosan languages, such as the wide array of
consonant clusters and the prosodic structure. However, as Li (1995) points out
that the dialects of Rukai differ not only geographically, but also, to a certain
5
extent, culturally and linguistically, one dialect of Rukai may be closer to the
Tsouic while the other dialect of Rukai is closer to the Paiwanic.
Language contact in Formosan languages has gradually aroused interest
of Austronesian specialists. Blust (2002) argues that Formosan languages such as
Thao or Saisiyat have been subjected to very heavy contact influence from SVO
Taiwanese. As a result, some Formosan languages have begun to favor SVO
order. However, Blust (2002) also notes that even in these languages verb-initial
constructions continue to be offered as a more native-like alternate to their
historically recent calqued equivalents. Unlike Li’s (1977a) diachronic account,
Hsin (2003) has proposed a synchronic approach in which mid vowels in Rukai
are generated in the dialect by phonological processes such as Vowel
Coalescence and Nucleus Incorporation. The results of the synchronic approach
show that mid vowels are the surface variants of high vowels, and the
distribution of // and // become predictable. Both diachronic and synchronic
accounts have made attempt to clarify the internal relationships of the languages,
and it is apparent that phonological features have become prominent indices for
the development of each dialect and the reconstruction of the proto-languages.
The geographical distribution of the two Formosan languages is shown in
Figure 1.4, in which the letters ‘g’ and ‘f’ represent Paiwan and Rukai
respectively. The fieldwork data presented in the current project are based on the
following dialects: Paiwan (Northern, Central and Southern) and Budai Rukai.
The critical review of the relevant literature and the previous documentation is
drawn along with the description and analysis of the fieldwork data.
6
Figure 1.4: Distribution of the Formosan Languages2
2 Source: http://www.ocac.net/newocac/taiwan/taiw an_6-3.htm#
7
1.2 Importance of Documentation of Prosody
Empirical study of Austronesian prosodic structure is relatively rare. Zorc
(1993) has claimed that in the synchronic description of any language, word
accent and intonation must be distinguished and accounted for. Nevertheless,
before accent and intonation can be distinguished, more empirical studies on
stress and accent patterns are needed. Several dimensions of factors have
involved in the documentation and preservation of Formosan prosody: the
diachronic change, synchronic linguistic alternation and the paralinguistic
language contact. The younger generation in tribes has relatively less chance to
speak their mother tongue. The factor of paralinguistic language contact will
probably more greatly influence the prosodic patterns of Formosan languages in
next generation. It has been observed in my fieldwork that younger informants
of Paiwan may have different prosodic patterns from their parents or
grandparents in their utterances.
The present study draws evidence from synchronic data of the prosodic
patterns found in Paiwan and Budai Rukai and proposes an account for the
distinction between the two languages. Not only stress patterns but also other
types of prosodic patterns such as accent and intonation play important roles in
word meanings and syntactic phrases in Formosan languages. The examples in
(1)-(4) are the pairs of prosodic contrast found in my fieldwork.
(1) Paiwan Pitch Accent Gloss
a. paisu páisu ‘money’
H
b. paisu (<paisu-u) paisu ‘(excl. imperative) Pestle!
H
8
(2) a. katsu (<kats-u) kátsu ‘(excl. imperative) Bite!’
H
b. katsu (<katsu-u) katsu ‘(excl. imperative) Bring (it)!’
H
(3) Paiwan Intonation Gloss
a. timau mamazian Low boundary tone ‘He is a chieftain.’
b. timau mamazian High boundary tone ‘Is he a chieftain?’
(4) Budai Rukai Intonation Gloss
a. ka-la-su talialaalaj Downstepped tone ‘He is a chieftain.’
b. ka-la-su talialaalaj Upstepped tone ‘Is he a chieftain?’
Examples of (1)-(3) are prosodic patterns in Paiwan, while examples of (4)
are drawn from the field data of Budai Rukai. The distinction between (a) and (b)
is based on prosodic components. A high or low boundary tone in Paiwan is
aligned with the right edge of an intonational phrase. A downstepped or up-
stepped peak prominence in Budai Rukai is aligned with the second-right or
third-right edge of an intonational phrase, depending on the quantity of the
penults. The stress patterns in Paiwan are syllabic trochees (Chen, 2004). In-
depth investigation in different Paiwan tribes has revealed the prosodic variation
among Northern, Central and Southern Paiwan. On the other hand, stress
patterns in Budai Rukai are not well studied yet. According to Zeitoun’s (2000)
preliminary description of Rukai phonology, stress falls on the penultimate but
sometimes antepenultimate syllable in Budai Rukai. However, long vowels at
penultimate position were mistaken as short vowels at antepenultimate position.
As a result, stress patterns in Budai Rukai are unclear under her description.
9
Fieldwork conducted in the current project has shown the quantity-sensitive
property of Budai Rukai stress and its syllable extrametricality.
The examples drawn from Paiwan and Budai Rukai illustrate the diversity
of prosody in Formosan languages, and they also reflect the development of
accent patterns in each subgroup. Furthermore, some cross-linguistic prosodic
patterns or meaningful phonological processes were found or preserved in myth
narrative, natural discourse or conversation (cf. Woodbury 1987). The
documentation of prosody in the grammar of an unknown language has become
an urgent issue for fieldworkers. None of the verbal arts of aboriginal languages
can be completely preserved without the documentation of prosody, at both
word and sentence levels, given the facts that the younger generations of the
aboriginal tribes have relatively less chance to speak their mother tongue, and
that language contact affects the prosodic patterns of the aboriginal languages.
1.3 Theoretical Frameworks Adopted for Paiwan and Budai Rukai Phonology
This section is a briefly review of the theoretical frameworks adopted for
the linguistic description in this project. It also explains the pros and cons of
theoretical frameworks for the field phonology of Paiwan and Budai Rukai. The
purpose for using various phonological theories is to elucidate the description of
Paiwan and Budai Rukai phonology, as clearly as possible. Theoretical
frameworks adopted for later description comprise autosegmental phonology,
metrical theory, prosodic theory and Optimality Theory.
Autosegmental Phonology
Autosegmental Phonology (cf. Goldsmith 1976) is an attempt to provide
an adequate understanding of the phonetic side of the linguistic representation.
10
It constitutes a particular claim about the geometry of phonetic representation.
The theory suggests that phonetic representation is composed of a set of several
sequences of segments, with constraints on the association of various levels of
sequences. It is a theory of how the various components of the articulatory
apparatus, such as lips (close, open), tongue body (high, front), velum (raise,
lower), and larynx (high pitch, low pitch), are coordinated.
The treatments of autosegmental phonology capture the existence of
contour-valued features, melody levels in the grammar, and processes of
automatic spreading of features, both to the left and right. In autosegmental
phonology, there is no longer a one-to-one relation between segments of the
string and features, which is an inherently non-linear character to phonological
representation. It becomes possible to represent the tonal features and the
segmental features on separate levels.
Autosegmental phonology has been adopted in a wide diversity of
language description, especially in tone languages. Like most of the fieldworkers,
I do not begin the current project with an understanding of the nature of the
linguistic observables in the unknown languages. Autosegmental analysis
provides wider range of possibility for the representation of the unknown
languages, and it is therefore the proper for the description and analysis of
segmental and suprasegmental elements of Paiwan and Budai Rukai.
Particularly, the current project captures the phonological patterns of the two
languages with an emphasis on the representations of prosody.
Metrical Stress Theory
Stress patterns in Paiwan and Budai Rukai will be described and analyzed
under the framework of metrical theory (cf. Hayes 1995). Metrical stress theory is
11
a branch of generative phonology that deals with stress patterns. Hayes (1995)
incorporates the trochaic and iambic opposition into a general theory of word
stressed assignment. In his view, stress is the linguistic manifestation of rhythmic
structure, and the phonological properties of stress can be explicated on this
basis. According to Hayes (1995), the smallest constituent in metrical structure is
the foot. The Iambic/Trochaic Law, illustrated in (5), determines the set of
possible feet and motivates a large number of segmental rules that adjust
metrical structure.
(5) Iambic/Trochaic Law (Hayes 1995)
a. Elements contrasting in intensity naturally form groupings with initial
prominence.
b. Elements contrasting in duration naturally form groupings with final
prominence.
Following Hayes (1995), metrical structure is not just a means of deriving stress
but serves as a general organizing principle for the phonology of a language. The
foot structure of a language can govern the prosodic morphology and cause
readjustments of stress in response to segmental changes. While languages
distinguish syllable quantity and syllable prominence, only quantity may be
referred to by rules of foot construction. Hayes (1981) proposes two parameters
that play the most important role in the metrical theory: quantity-sensitive and
left/right dominance. By setting up all the relevant parameters, stress rules of a
language can be derived, which is the idea of parametric metrical theory. A
proposed parametric theory is well defined, maximally restrictive, and is capable
of describing all the stress systems of the world’s languages. It is therefore more
constrained and capable of stronger predictions.
12
Metrical stress theory is applicable to the description of an unknown
language, because it captures the basis of the rhythmic structure of the language,
relevant segmental adjustments, and the organization of the phonology of the
language. It not only shows the derivation of the rhythmic structure but also
generalizes grouping structure in metrical representations and foot templates.
Typology of Stress
As far as typology of stress is concerned, quantity-sensitive is a well-
known parameter. In quantity-sensitive languages, the weight of the syllable
must be concerned, with heavy syllables characteristically attracting stress and
light syllables receiving stress only in the absence of an eligible heavy syllable. In
quantity-insensitive languages, stress is typically determined by the odd or even
location of a syllable with respect to the left or right edge of the word. Hayes
(1981) proposes foot construction algorithms as follows: Quantity-Sensitive (Left
or Right Dominant) and Quantity-Insensitive (Left or Right Dominant).
On the other hand, Kenstowicz (1996) proposes the hierarchy of the
optimal vowels for stress in several diverse languages, so-called Quality-
Sensitive stress. In Quality-Sensitive stress system, vowel quality plays a role in
determining the location of stress, and stress seeks out the most optimal vowels
as determined by the hierarchies of (a) a, ä > e, o > i, u; (b) a, ä, e, o, i, u > .
Phonetic basis of a language has a bearing on the prominence hierarchy. A
phoneme’s inherent feature may influence the distribution of prosodic categories.
Prosodic Theory
Hayes (1989) and the other prosodic theorists (cf. Selkirk 1980a, 1980b;
McCarthy and Prince 1986) assume a set of universal prosodic categories in a
13
hierarchical relation. In the prosodic hierarchy, as illustrated in (6), moras are
organized into syllables, syllables into feet, and feet into prosodic words. Every
prosodic word (PrWd) contains a foot, and every foot contains a syllable, and
every syllable contains a mora. Prosodic units in the hierarchy are assumed to be
authentic. Prosodic theory predicts that stress feet are necessarily composed of
syllables and all metrical paring.
(6) Prosodic Hierarchy
PrWd Prosodic Word
Ft Foot
Syllable
µ Mora
Mora is a unit of quantity, and the mora unit may be ignored in the
prosodic representation of a quantity-insensitive language. The components of a
prosodic hierarchy in Selkirk’s (1995) proposal comprise syllable, foot,
phonological word, phonological phrase, intonational phrase, and phonological
utterance. Given that the prosodic categories are universal and authentic (cf.
Selkirk 1984, 1986, 1995), the prosodic representation of an unknown language X
can be constructed, as shown in (7).
(7) Prosodic Representation of Language X
υ Utterance
ι ι Intonational Phrase
φ φ Phonological Phrase
ω ω ω Phonological Word
F F F F Foot
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ Syllable
x x x x x x x x x x x x x Segmental Structure
14
The assumptions of the prosodic representations in the unknown
languages are examined, verified or revised in this dissertation.
Optimality Theory
Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993; McCarthy and Prince
1993a, b) turns markedness statements into the actual substance of grammars, in
the form of universal constraints. The definition of constraints, under the
framework of Optimality Theory (Kager 1999), is a structural requirement that
may be either satisfied or violated by an output form. Phonological constraints
are intrinsically in conflict, and every logically possible output of any grammar
will necessarily violate at least some constraint. The grammar in Optimality
Theory selects output representation for every input representation.
Optimality Theory recognizes two types of constraints, faithfulness and
markedness. Each individual constraint evaluates one specific aspect of output
markedness or faithfulness. Description of an unknown language, however,
usually starts with a preliminary sketch of segmental distribution and then its
prosodic patterns. Pitch accent and sentence-level prosody in Formosan
languages, for instance, comprise phonological and morphological or syntactic
processes. For this reason, the analysis of pitch accent or sentence-level prosody
is difficult to recapitulate in Optimality Theory, which does not include solid
word and sentence levels in its model. On the other hand, there are some
principles built in Optimality Theory good for the generalization in a
comparative study, such as markedness, constraints, and ranking. Optimality
Theory allows us to relate the patterns in a particular language to patterns across
languages. It assumes that all the languages have the same set of ranking, and
the difference among languages lies in the ranking of the constraints.
15
The current work aims to provide both a description and an analysis of
the phonology in the two Formosan languages. The constraints are adopted for
comparison, only after a comprehensive grammar of Paiwan and Budai Rukai
phonology is accomplished.
1.4 Organization of the Dissertation
The current project investigates sound patterns, syllable structure, stress,
accent, and intonation of the two Formosan languages, Paiwan and Budai Rukai,
particularly, the possible roles of word-level and sentence-level prosodic
structures and whether the prosody in the languages has special expressive or
other pragmatic meanings.
The documentation of phonology and prosodic patterns of the two
languages is based on my fieldwork data, consisting of elicitation, phrases,
sentences, narrative, and natural discourse. Data drawn from other corpus or
archive are given a clear source. Phonetic and phonological patterns are
documented and analyzed. Instrumental studies are also conducted to verify the
phonological description and show the phonetic representations of the sound
patters. In other words, both descriptive characteristics and empirical evidence
are found in this dissertation. The dissertation will be organized as follows.
Chapter 2 captures the major features of Paiwan phonology and the
salient features in the sub-dialects of Paiwan, i.e., phonological variation among
Northern, Central and Southern Paiwan. Stress patterns in Paiwan are cautiously
examined, with a categorization of individual stems, affixed forms, and phrases.
I begin with a thumbnail sketch of Paiwan morphology, followed by the syllable
structure, the inventory of consonants and vowels, and a detailed description of
word stress is provided. Next, I deal with a variety of morphophonemics and the
16
prosodic patterns in phonological phrases. The chapter ends with the
transcription and orthography issues of the Paiwan language.
Chapter 3 captures the phonetic representations of Paiwan. It provides a
detailed phonetic description and empirical evidence for the phonetic varieties of
Paiwan. Sound change attested in the speech community is the motivation for
the empirical examination. VOTs of Paiwan consonants and the example
spectrogram are illustrated. Next, I examine intrinsic and extrinsic vowel
durations of Paiwan. An attempt is made to figure out the phonetic correlates of
Paiwan stress. Issues on synchronic varieties and diachronic sound change are
addressed. The chapter ends with a list of phonetic varieties, and their
implications for the reconstruction of Proto-Paiwan.
Chapter 4 is the prosodic structure of Paiwan. I deal with the prosodic
properties of the Paiwan language. Prosody plays an important role in many
aspects of Paiwan phonology, such as prosodic words, phonological phrases,
intonation, and beyond sentence level. The chapter aims to draw a clear picture
on how prosody works in the speech of Paiwan. Word-level pitch accent,
sentence-level intonation, and prosody beyond sentence are described and
analyzed. The chapter begins with a review of critical prosody issues, along with
which the prosodic structure of Paiwan is temporarily proposed. Next, all types
of word-level pitch accent in Paiwan, including imperative accent and pragmatic
accent in different types of discourse are clarified. A sketch of intonational
phonology of Paiwan is illustrated, and tone or intonational variation is modeled
in terms of the f0 realization. Prosody in Paiwan oral narrative and discourse is
also described and analyzed. The chapter ends with a discussion of prosody in
linguistic documentation and the contradiction of the prosodic hierarchy.
17
Chapter 5 is a sketch of the major features of Budai Rukai phonology. I
also provide phonetic representations and variation of Budai Rukai, along with
the description. This chapter focuses on distinctive phonemes, syllable structure,
segmental phonetics and word stress of Budai Rukai. Given that affixation is also
an important process for the formation of prosodic words in Budai Rukai, the
chapter starts with a thumbnail sketch of Budai Rukai morphology. Next,
canonical syllable structure is provided, followed by both consonant and vowel
inventories. Acoustic measurements of segments and the phonetic
representations of allophones are illustrated. The distribution of stress is
described, and the stress patterns are analyzed with metrical parameters in Budai
Rukai. Orthography issues are addressed at the end.
Chapter 6 is a brief sketch of the prosodic patterns in Budai Rukai,
particularly, word-level pitch accent and sentence-level intonation. First, both
phonological variation of word stress and the phonetic representations of word
stress in Budai Rukai are presented. A list of prosodic words with stress variation
is compiled for the generalization and the argument for contact stress patterns.
Phonetic correlates of Budai stress are also investigated. Next, two types of pitch
accent in Budai Rukai, regional and imperative, are clarified. Finally, intonational
phonology of Budai Rukai is drawn in terms of tones, the f0 realization. Phonetic
representations of intonation are illustrated with pitch tracks of minimal pairs.
Chapter 7 is a discussion on the relationship between Paiwan and Budai
Rukai. An attempt is made to support the idea that the common innovations
shared by Paiwan and Budai Rukai are due to recent contact. Earlier proposals of
family tree classification are reviewed. First, characteristics of consonants, vowels
and syllable structure of Paiwan and Budai Rukai are presented and compared.
The segmental characteristics of the two languages have a bearing on the
18
historical reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian (PAN) language. Next, the
prosodic representations of Paiwan and Budai Rukai, including word stress and
pitch accent, are compared. The historical development of stress from PAN to
modern Paiwan and Budai Rukai is reconstructed, and the indicators in the
Formosan languages that reflect the contrastive stress in PAN are found. In
addition, cognates and loans are presented to verify the independent
development of Paiwan and Budai Rukai from PAN, and the innovations shared
by the two languages are due to recent contact. The issues of language contact in
the Paiwan and Budai Rukai tribes are drawn with a summary of the attested
contact phonological features at the end.
Chapter 8, the final chapter, concludes the dissertation with the
significance of the current project. A brief summary of the important findings is
refreshed. Language Continuum has been proposed for Paiwan and Budai Rukai,
and it may apply to the other Formosan languages, to draw out the growing
trend of language contact in the tribal communities. Remaining issues for further
studies are addressed to end the dissertation.
19
CHAPTER TWO
PHONOLOGY OF PAIWAN
This chapter deals with the major features of Paiwan phonology and also
includes an account of the salient features in the sub-dialects of Paiwan.
Phonological phonemes of Paiwan have been briefly introduced in earlier field
reports (Ho 1977, 1978; Ferrell 1982; Chang 2000; Pulaluyan 2000), but none of the
existing documentation has drawn a clear picture on segmental phonology, word
stress, and phrasal prosodic formation. It has been taken for granted that Paiwan
has a penultimate stress in earlier studies (Chang 2000; Tseng 2003) without a
cautious examination into individual stems, affixed forms, and phrases. The
chapter focuses on Paiwan phonemes and segmental phonology, but a detailed
description of word stress and phrasal phonology is also found here.
Section 2.1 is a thumbnail sketch of Paiwan morphology. Syllable structure
is presented in section 2.2. Section 2.3 provides consonant inventory of Paiwan,
including the major segmental varieties within the Paiwan community and the
segmental alternation. Vowel inventory is given in section 2.4. Stress is described
and analyzed in section 2.5, in which two types of stress patterns in Paiwan are
illustrated. A theoretical orientation from metrical theory (Hayes 1995) will be
adopted in the description of stress. Section 2.6 deals with a variety of
morphophonemics, and section 2.7 describes the structure of a phonological
phrase. Finally, the IPA transcription used for the current study is addressed in
section 2.8, and the other types of transcription and the orthography issue are
briefly discussed.
Paiwan is notable for its large number of consonantal phonemes,
compared with the other Formosan languages. The importance of Paiwan has
20
been mentioned in Ferrell’s (1982) dictionary. Paiwan does not show extensive
mergers and splits among Proto-Austronesian (PAN) stops. The significance of
Paiwan lies in its phoneme inventory directly comparable to the PAN inventory
proposed in Dempwolff’s (1934-38) and Dahl’s (1973) reconstruction studies.
Paiwan language has parallel palatal stops which are rarely attested in the other
Formosan languages, and the merger of palatal stops also occurs in some
varieties of Paiwan. An attempt has been made in Ho’s (1978) comparative study
to reconstruct Proto-Paiwan. Yet, a comprehensive description on Paiwan
phonology, drawn from fieldwork data and empirical evidence, is still needed.
This chapter provides the description of Paiwan phonology, and the empirical
evidence from acoustic phonetic studies is found in the next chapter, Chapter 3.
The Paiwan aborigines occupy the mountain and foothill areas of
Pingtung and Taitung Counties, Taiwan. The population of Paiwan is centered at
Da-Wu Mountain areas, 500-1200 meters above sea level, and where the hills
extend down to the sea. In the southern territory of the Paiwan aborigines,
Paiwan tribes have been found on the coast as well as along the narrow interior
valleys of the numerous streams. According to Ferrell’s (1982) report, the high
interior mountains in the northern part of Pingtung County are considered by
many Paiwan aborigines to represent their place of origin, and villages found in
the interior mountainous area are the ones which commonly figure in origin
myths and oral literature. Nevertheless, the central mountain chain and Japanese
regional aboriginal offices used for tribal classification in Ogawa and Asai’s
(1935) study have lost their index function today for dialectology, ever since the
withdrawal of Japanese governance.
The investigation of Paiwan villages in the current study follows the
geographical coordinates within Pingtung County, from the Northern, Central,
21
to the Southern tribes. Six Paiwan tribes were investigated. The informants are
four male and six female Paiwan speakers, ages 48-70. All of them speak very
fluent Paiwan language. Although the study assesses linguistic varieties in
several Northern, Central and Southern Paiwan tribes, including villages in
Sandimen, Majia, Piuma, Gulou, Shimen and Mudan, data collected in Central
Piuma Paiwan village are the base for this chapter, in which certain historical
merger was prohibited and more consonantal phonemes have been preserved.
All the villages investigated in the current study are illustrated in Figure 2.1.
However, data collected in Northern and Southern Paiwan villages will be
roughly discussed when salient regional distinction occurs.
Village Index
Figure 2.11: The Paiwan V
1 The background of the figure is drawn from thhttp://www.kia.gov.tw/english/e_content/e_cus
1
1. Sandimen2
ill
e oftome
2. Majia 3
3. Piuma
4. Gulou
45. Shimen 65
ag
ficir/e_
22
6. Mudan
es Investigated in the Current Study
al website of Kaohsiung International Airport: tour-1.asp
Central Piuma village is one of the oldest villages among the Paiwan
tribes in Pingtung County, located at the central eastern of Pingtung County. The
tribe is surrounded with mountains. More than 95% of the residents in the
community are the Paiwan aborigines. Non-Paiwan residents in the community
are mainly spouses of the Paiwan people. Paiwan is the primary communication
language in the tribe. Social affairs were announced in Paiwan within the village.
The younger generation speaks Mandarin in public educational institutions and
Taiwanese outside of the tribe. All the oral data were collected from natural
speech, including elicitation, narrative, and conversation.
As far as isogloss is concerned, it is difficult to draw a borderline between
one dialect domain and another in the Paiwan territory. It has been found that
certain features are not distinctive between northern and central geographical
regions, while some Paiwan speakers who live around central southern regions
may acquire both Central and Southern Paiwan dialect features. Due to the
frequent immigration and intertribal marriage, relatively convenient
transportation and the communication with outsiders, it is rather difficult to
mark the boundary between dialect domains. The terms of Northern, Central, and
Southern are not only conventionally referred to the Paiwan dialects according to
the geographical distribution but also indices for self-identity when the middle-
aged Paiwan people need to distinguish themselves from the other tribal groups.
For instance, in an intertribal-marriage family living in Central Piuma village, the
husband was from Northern Paiwan, whereas the wife was born and raised in
Central Piuma. Every Paiwan speaker in the Central Piuma village is aware of
the ‘Northern’ pronunciation of the husband, even though the husband has
moved to Central Piuma from the North early as at the age of ten. It is clear that
the existence of dialectal variants should be described and accounted for,
23
especially when the phonological variants distinguish one dialect form another,
though the task of concrete classification may be unreachable at this stage. It has
been mentioned in Hua and Zeitoun (2005) that most scholars conveniently refer
to Paiwan dialects according to their geographic distribution, and that Ho (1978)
has warned against the feasibility of such a classification. On the other hand,
Ferrell (1982) has also reported that phonologically Central and Southern Paiwan
villages tend to form a loose grouping, opposed to an even more heterogeneous
grouping of northern and eastern villages. This indicates that the phonological
distinction among the Paiwan aborigines does exist. The preliminary
classification of Northern, Central, and Southern in this chapter is built on the
attested phonological varieties. Fieldwork traces the relative locus of the villages
within the Paiwan territory, centered from the Da-Wu Mountain in Pingtung
County. Shown in Figure 2.1, the numerals ‘1’ and ‘2’ represent Northern Paiwan,
whereas ‘3’ and ‘4’ represent Central Paiwan, and ‘5’ and ‘6’ represent Southern
Paiwan. The focus of the classification is a sketch of phonological distinction. This
chapter deals with the phonology of Paiwan only. Detailed phonetic variation of
Paiwan is discussed in the next chapter, Chapter 3.
2.1 Thumbnail Sketch of Paiwan Morphology
To better facilitate our understanding of Paiwan phonology and phonetics,
I wish to first offer a thumbnail description of Paiwan morphology. Paiwan
morphemes can be classified into roots and bound forms. Roots are independent
free morphemes that can be used independently as complete words or utterances.
Roots include primary nouns, verb stems, stative verb stems and particles.
Bound forms must be used in combination with other morphemes. At least four
classes of bound forms were attested: ligatures (as construction markers),
24
intensifiers, personal pronouns, and derivational morphemes (as affixes).
Derivational morphemes in Paiwan include bound prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and
circumfixes. Derivational processes are usually productive, and by adding
derivational morphemes the transformation from nouns into verbs occur. On the
other hand, inflectional affixes are usually attached to verb stems, and the
processes of inflection and derivation are sometimes undistinguishable. Words in
Paiwan are independent forms comprised of independent morphemes or the
combination of free stems and bound morphemes. Compounds are very
restricted in Paiwan, and they are usually formed with the connection of
ligatures as lexemes.
2.1.1 Independent Morphemes
Roots in Paiwan are generally in the shapes of CVC, CVCV(C), and
CVCVCV(C). Roots longer than three syllables are rather restricted. Roots are the
independent morphemes as affix targets. Affixes may prefix, infix or suffix to a
minimal independent word. Paiwan word minimality is shown in (1).
(1) Paiwan Word Minimality
Shapes Roots GLOSS
a. CVC sis ‘meat containing a bone’
b. CVCV ima ‘hand’
c. CVCVC vuqa ‘to be white’
d. CVCVCV qaraba ‘flat worm’
e. CVCVCVC kadikad ‘a stirrer’
The affixation to the independent words is exemplified in (2).
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(2) a. Roots as Prefix Targets : prefixes attach to the left edge of roots
Roots Prefixation GLOSS
kua piprefix-kua ‘to wash feet’
ima miprefix-ima ‘to wash hands’
ikuz iprefix-ikuz ‘behind’
aak marprefix-aak ‘parent and child’
b. Roots as Suffix Targets: suffixes attach to the right edge of roots
Roots Suffixation GLOSS
vaik vaik-ansuffix ‘take it and go!’
kan kan-nsuffix ‘eat’; ‘food’
tsautsau tsautsau-aatasuffix ‘it is definitely a person’
c. Roots as Infix Targets: infixes attach to neither the right edge nor the left
edge of roots, usually right after the first consonant of roots
Roots Infixation GLOSS
kan k-minfix-an ‘to eat’
matsa m-ninfix-atsa ‘to see’
akup -ininfix-akup ‘vine-covered’
d. Roots as Circumfix Targets: circumfixes attach to both right edges and left
edges of roots; circumfixes are the combination of prefixes and suffixes.
Roots Circumfixation GLOSS
kan ka-kan-an ‘dining room’
vaik ku-vaik-aj ‘I will leave’
ki caa-ki-an ‘the smallest’
qua kaa-qua-an ‘rainy season’
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e. Roots as Multi-Affix Targets: multiple prefixes and suffixes may attach to
the right edge or the left edge of roots; infixes may be embedded in prefix
sequences right after the first consonant of the prefix morphemes; the
combination of prefixes, infixes or suffixes may attach to roots to form
independent words. In the following examples, prefixes are underlined.
Roots Multi-Affixation GLOSS
kan paprefix-puprefix-kan ‘to call someone to eat’
qumaq taprefix-qumaq-ansuffix-ansuffix ‘entire household’
am paprefix-kaprefix-am-nsuffix ‘to do thoroughly’
quid pprefix-ninfix-a-quid-ansuffix ‘to really do’
puq kprefix-ininfix-a-puq-ansuffix ‘filled’
To summarize, shapes of affixation are predictable, usually in the form of
V, CV, VC, VCV or CVCV. None of the attested affixes are in the form of CVC,
which is a common shape of roots. Roots in Paiwan carry the main components
of meanings in a word. More examples of prefixing, suffixing, infixing, and
circumfixing are found in section 2.1.2.3, section 2.1.2.4, section 2.1.2.5, and
section 2.1.2.6 respectively. In the following sections, fours types of independent
morphemes are exemplified: primary nouns, verb stems, stative verb stems as
adjectives, and particles.
2.1.1.1 Primary Nouns
Primary nouns in Paiwan are simple morphemes that cannot be
segmented into simper components. Nouns in Paiwan can be used as verb stems
as well, as shown (3). Examples illustrated in (3) are Agent Focus forms, in
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which the infixation of m occurs right after the first consonant of the noun roots.
For instance, the infixation of m to the CVC roots becomes C-m-VC.
(3) Nouns Gloss Verbs Gloss
sis ‘meat containing a bone’ s-m-is ‘to gnaw bone’
ima ‘hand’ -m-ima ‘to use hands’
kasuj ‘trousers’ k-m-asuj ‘wear trousers’
kadikad ‘a stirrer’ k-m-adikad ‘to stir’
2.1.1.2 Verb Stems
Verb stems generally cannot be used as independent complete words or
utterances without proper inflectional affixation. In the following examples,
verbs can stand alone as a word, whereas stem morphemes cannot. Examples of
verbs at the right column are Agent Focus forms. Again, VC-infixation occurs
right after the first consonant of the stems, i.e., C-m-VC(V)(C).
(4) Stems Gloss Verbs Gloss
kats ‘to bite’ k-m-ats ‘to bite’
rava ‘to prepare’ r-m-ava ‘to prepare things’
isuk ‘to pull out’ -m-isuk ‘to extract’
rawraw ‘to rinse’ r-m-awraw ‘to rinse (clothing)’
aiak ‘to scatter’ -m-aiak ‘to put in disarray’
Stems not only carry the main components of meanings in a word but also
serve as the bases for the other independent words. A stem in Paiwan may
consist only of a single root morpheme or of two root morphemes, or of a root
morpheme plus a derivation affix or affixes. Examples are given in (5).
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(5) Root: avatsroot ‘to walk’
Stem: paprefix- avatsstem ‘to cause to walk’
Derivation: paprefix-[a-ava-avatsbase]stem ‘to do a run around’
Roots, stems, and derivation forms in Paiwan can form a prosodic word to
which stress can apply. Further description and discussion on Paiwan stress is
found in section 2.5.
2.1.1.3 Stative Verb Stems as Adjectives
The number of independent stative verb stems is restricted. Stative verb
stems in Paiwan serve as modifiers or adjectives2 without inflection. Stative verb
stems can be used as independent complete words. Examples are given in (6).
(6) Stems Gloss Stems Gloss
qatsi ‘to be brave’ ki ‘to be small’
umak ‘to be soft’ um ‘to be ripe’
vuqa ‘to be white’ qts ‘to be black’
2.1.1.4 Particles
Particles are generally interjections used independently in utterances.
Interjections are often in the form of vowel sequences without consonantal onsets.
Examples are given in (7).
(7) Stems Gloss Stems Gloss
ui ‘yes’ ini ‘no; do not’
nka ‘not exist’ ai ‘oh! (exclamation)’
ua ‘oh! (exclamation of pain)
2 Most of the current studies on Formosan languages do not admit the existence of adjectives.
29
2.1.2 Bound Forms
Bound forms are non-independent morphemes that must be in
combination with either independent roots or other non-independent
morphemes to form words. In this section, ligatures, pronouns, prefixing,
suffixing, infixing, circumfixing, focus, and reduplication are illustrated.
2.1.2.1 Ligatures3
Paiwan does not allow Noun + Noun compounding without ligatures.
Ligatures are construction markers that introduce relational phrases such as
noun phrases or verb phrases. Ligatures are syntactic markers in noun phrases,
rather than agreement markers. On the other hand, the relationship between verb
phrases and noun phrases can be equal, genitive or unequal. Unequal
relationship is usually accusative. Three ligatures with their functions are given
in (8), and examples are illustrated in (9).
(8) Ligatures Function
a equal relationship (Lig)
nua genitive relationship (Gen)
tua neither equal nor genitive relationship (Acc)
(9) a. vuvu a vavajan
grandparent Lig woman
‘female grandparents’; ’grandmother’; ’the grandparent is female’; ‘the
woman is a grandparent’; the female who is a grandparent’;
3 The term ‘ligature’ was adopted from Li (1996a, 1996b, 1997, 2004). A ligature links two nouns, verbs or phrases. There is not always a clear distinction between nominative case markers and ligatures. Li (2004) has noted that the marker a in Basay, another Formosan language, can function as the nominative and as a ligature, just as a in Paiwan and a in Kavalan. The ligature a may have diferet syntactic uses from the nominative a.
30
’the grandparent who is a female’
b. vuvu nua vavajan
grandparent Gen woman
‘the woman’s grandparent’=’the grandparent belongs to the woman’
c. nua vavajan a vuvu
Gen woman Lig grandparent
‘the woman’s grandparent’; ‘the grandparent belongs to the woman’; ‘the
grandparent who belongs to the woman’
d. tmk tua vava ti vuvu
drink Acc wine Nom grandparent
‘Grandparent drinks wine’
Note the construction marker ‘ti’ shown in the example of (9d) indicates
Nominative singular case. A separate set of construction markers are used with
names of individuals or subjects, with personal pronouns, or with kinship terms.
The paradigm of the construction markers is given in (10).
(10) Nominative Genitive Accusative
Singular ti ni cai
Plural tia nia caia
2.1.2.2 Pronouns
Pronouns in Paiwan are either bound morphemes or the combination of
bound morphemes as independent pronouns. Bound morphemes behave like
construction markers, whereas independent personal pronouns are the
combinations of both construction markers and bound pronoun morphemes. A
complete paradigm of Paiwan personal pronouns is illustrated in (11).
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(11) Nominative Genitive Accusative
1st person singular -akn; ti-akn ku-; ni-akn canu-akn
1st person plural (incl.) -icn; ti-cn ca-; ni-cn canu-icn
1st person plural (excl.) -amn; ti-amn nia-; ni-amn canu-amn
2nd person singular -sun; ti-sun su-; ni-sun canu-sun
2nd person plural -mun; ti-mun nu-; ni-mun canu-mun
3rd person singular ti-mau ni-mau cai-mau
3rd person plural ti-a-mau ni-a-mau cai-a-mau
2.1.2.3 Prefixing
Generally speaking, prefixes are productive derivational morphemes in
Paiwan that they can attach to the left edges of different roots or stems. The
number of prefixes is the largest among the affixes. One single prefix form may
have different grammatical functions and meanings, whereas allomorphs are
also attested. Prefixing always occurs at the left edge of roots or stems, shown as
follows: PREFIX-[…]stem. A few examples of prefixes are illustrated in (12).
(12) Prefixes Functions Examples Gloss
ca- more; further ca-ki ‘smaller’
c- from; to do at c-maza ‘to stay here’
cu- at certain place cu-a-qatsiaj ‘a place characterized
by stones’
i- at; in i-gadu ‘in the mountains’
ka1- Inchoative Marker ka1-aav-u ‘do it quickly!’
ka2- time in past ka2-tiaw ‘yesterday’
ki- get; obtain ki-paisu ‘to get money’
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a- belong to a category a-Taihuk ‘the people who lives
in Taipei’
- go in direction of -tku ‘to go downward’
ma- in the condition of; ma-uats ‘to be sticky’
be affected by
ma- number of persons ma-ima ‘five persons’
mar- reciprocal relationship mar-aak ‘parent and child’
m- Agent Marker for Verbs m-qatsa ‘to become big’
(change of status)
mr- super-; gigantic mr-aak ‘to be an overgrown
child’
mi- Agent Marker (intransitive) mi-gatsa ‘to stand’
na- already; definitely na-vaik-aa ‘to have already left’
nu- if; when nu-vaik-akn ‘if I go’
pa- occur; to cause pa-patsaj ‘to kill; to cause death’
p- to come into view; emerge p-zaum ‘water comes out’
pi- put in/on pi-tskuj ‘to put it on the table’
pu- have; produce; acquire pu-aak ‘to give birth to child’
sa1- wish to sa1-vaik-akn ‘I wish to leave’
sa2- go to; in the direction of sa2-zua-u ‘go there!’
sa3- have quality/flavor of sa3-gu ‘to smell like a cow’
s1- people of s1-Taihuk ‘a person from Taipei’
s2- have quality of s2-kuja ‘bad’
s3- occur unexpectedly s3-uats ‘to adhere to
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accidently’
si1- Instrumental Focus Marker si1-kan ‘eating utensil’
si2- belong to certain time si2-tiav-an ‘belong to yesterday’
in the past
ta- in past; =ka ta-ida ‘when (in past)’
uri definite future uri-vaik ‘shall go/leave’
2.1.2.4 Suffixing
Suffixing always occurs at the right edge of roots or stems, shown as
follows: […]stem-SUFFIX. The suffixes in Paiwan are either non-derivational or
derivational morphemes. Non-independent and non-derivational suffixes
usually qualify the morphemes to which they are attached. They come with
specific roots or stems. Non-derivational suffixing is exemplified in (13).
(13) Suffixes Gloss Examples Gloss
-aa ‘certainly’ vaik-aa ‘certainly going’
-aata ‘(emphatic) definitely’ vavajan-aata ‘it is definitely a woman’
ui-aata ‘definitely yes’
-anan ‘still, yet’ kma-kan-anan ‘still eating’
a (emphasis) ui-a ‘yes’
Derivational suffixes are usually productive morphemes that attached to
roots or stems. Diverse grammatical functions of derivational suffixes have been
attested in Paiwan, such as focus markers, imperative voice, and groupings.
Examples of derivational suffix morphemes are illustrated in (14).
(14) Suffixes Functions Examples Gloss
-an Specifier; Locative Focus vaik-an ‘take it and go!’
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-n Goal of Action; Object Focus kan-n ‘eat’; ‘food’
-aj Intended; Object Focus ku-vaik-aj ‘I will leave (sb.)’
-aw Intended; Locative Focus ku-vaik-aw ‘I will go’
-u Agent Focus; Imperative vaik-u ‘Go! Leave!’
-i Object Focus; Imperative vaik-i ‘Let’s Go!’
- Groupings; Duration maka-ima- ‘five (days, times)’
2.1.2.5 Infixing
Infixes in Paiwan are generally in the form of VC and occur at the second-
left edge of /CVC…/ roots or stems, or prefixes, right after the first consonant of
stems, shown as follows: C]stem-INFIX-[VC…]stem. Infixes attested in Paiwan are
all bound morphemes attached to roots, stems or words. Some of the infixes are
allomorphs. Examples are given in (15).
(15) Infixes Functions Examples Gloss
-a- have sound or quality of k-a-k ‘have ringing in ears’
-a- have sound or quality of c-a-qcq ‘making clicking noise’
-ar1- have sound or quality of ts-ar1-abtsab ‘to clap hands’
-ar2- on all sides k-ar2-a-kim ‘to search everywhere’
-m- Agent or Actor; k-m-an ‘to eat’
Agent Focus Marker
-in- perfective markers; k-in-an ‘have already eaten;
action has already begun have started eating’
2.1.2.6 Circumfixing
Circumfixing components are generally derivational morphemes that are
productive and usually attached to stems to form independent words. Circum-
35
fixes are usually the combination of prefixes and suffixes, but the combination of
prefixes, infixes, and suffixes are also attested. Roots or stems are surrounded by
circumfixes. Paiwan is notable for its richness of highly productive derivational
morphemes. A wide diversity of derivational morphemes was attested. In
addition to prefixes, suffixes and infixes shown in section 2.1.2.3, 2.1.2.4 and
2.1.2.5, circumfixes can produce limitless derivation processes in Paiwan.
Circumfixing occurs at the left edge and the right edge of roots or stems. A few
examples of derivational circumfixing morphemes are illustrated in (16).
(16) Morphemes Functions Examples GLOSS
mi- + -an pretend mi-taqd-an ‘pretend to be asleep’
caa- + -an most; -est caa-ki-an ‘the smallest’
ka-c-+-an containing ka-c-zaum-an ‘containing water’
ka-na- + -aa every ka-na-tsautsau-aa ‘every person’
pu- + -an container of pu-zaum-an ‘water container’
ka- +-an principal; main ka-kan-an ‘dining room’
kaa- +-an characterized kaa-qua-an ‘rainy season’
time/place
r-m-a-+an do at/in r-m-a-zaum-an ‘to do in water’
2.1.2.7 Focus
Focus is a syntactic marking of the verb in a sentence upon a specific facet
of the action or situation. It is an important grammatical feature not only in
Paiwan but also in western Austronesian languages (cf. Ferrell, 1982). Four
categories of focus markers were attested in Paiwan. Focus markers can be
prefixes, infixes or suffixes. The focus maker morphemes are illustrated in (17).
36
(17) Focus Markers
a. Agent / Actor Focus (AF): infix -m-
b. Object/ Patient Focus (OF): suffix -n
c. Locative, spatial or temporal locus, beneficiary Focus (LF): suffix -an
d. Instrumental Focus (IF): prefix si-
The minimal pairs for focus system are given in (18).
(18) a. inu a k-m-an a vavajan ‘where is the woman eating?’
where Lig eat (AF) Lig woman
b. inu a kan-n nua vavajan ‘where is the woman’s food?’
where Lig eat (OF) Gen woman
c. inu a kan-an nua vavajan ‘where is the woman’s eating place?
where Lig eat (LF) Gen woman
d. inu a si-kan nua vavajan ‘where is the woman’s eating-utensil?’
where Lig eat (IF) Gen woman
2.1.2.8 Reduplication
Reduplication is a process of repetition of root morphemes without
adding ligatures between bases and prefixes or suffixes. Reduplication is rather
productive in Paiwan, as it occurs not only in roots, nouns, and other stems, but
also in verbs. Full reduplication generally occurs in nouns or stative verbs,
whereas partial reduplication commonly occurs in verbs. At least two types of
partial reduplication are attested in Paiwan: Ca-reduplication in which C is the
first consonant of the bases, and the reduplication of roots less final consonant
(CV or CVCV). A few examples of Paiwan reduplication are illustrated in (19).
(19) a. Full Reduplication: reduplicants copy the complete syllables of the base to
form another new word
37
Roots Gloss Reduplication Gloss
au ‘honey’ au-au ‘sweets’
qatsa ‘big’ qatsa-qatsa ‘tall’
ki ‘small’ ki-ki ‘very small’
b. Reduplication in verbs: reduplicants copy the partial syllable(s) of the base
to form another new word. While the bases in Paiwan are in the form of
CVC or CVCV(C), reduplicants usually do not copy the final coda of the
bases. The following examples illustrate partial reduplication in Paiwan:
RED + BASE.
BASE Gloss Reduplication Gloss
qvt ‘to embrace’ ma-qa-qvt ‘to embrace each other’
ai ‘to chase’ ma-a-ai ‘to chase each other’
-uaq ‘to be good’ ua-uaq ‘beautiful’
i ‘to laugh’ pa-a-i-i ‘to laugh together’
More discussion on Paiwan reduplication is found in section 2.6.4.
2.1.3 Word Classes
Words are defined as independent forms carrying meanings. They are
either single independent morphemes such as roots or the combination of
independent and bound form morphemes. Words in Paiwan can be classified
into nouns, verbs, stative verbs /adjectives, adverbials and particles. Examples of
word classes are shown in (20). Stems are in bold and underlined.
(20) a. Nouns: the combination of noun stems and affixes (prefixes, infixes,
suffixes, or circumfixes)
38
Stems Gloss Words Gloss
tagi ‘mountain fields’ p-in-a-tagi-an ‘beginning place’
qajaw ‘the front’ qaja-qajav-an ‘frontmost’
siaw ‘soup’ pa-pu-siav-an ‘a wooden soup-bowl’
ksa ‘food’ ka-ksa-an ‘kitchen, cooking area’
kasiw ‘tree’ pu-kasi-kasiv-an ‘place for storing firewood’
b. Verbs: the combination of verb stems and affixes (prefixes or/and infixes)
Stems Gloss Words Gloss
gutsa ‘to break open’ ma-gutsa ‘become broken open’
gatsa ‘to stand’ p-ar-a-gatsa ‘to do in standing
position’
gats ‘to itch’ pa-p-gats ‘to cause itching’
avats ‘to walk’ pa-a-ava-avats ‘to do a rough
run around’
patsaj ‘to die’ ki-cau-patsaj ‘to endure’
c. Stative Verbs /Adjectives: the combination of stative verb stems and
affixes (prefixes or/and infixes)
Stems Gloss Words Gloss
kuja ‘a defect’ na-p-sa-kuja ‘be unpleasant’
aits ‘dried grass’ ma-ai-aits ‘be similar to
dried grass’
au ‘an unfinished portion’ na-ma-au ‘be left out’
auq ‘be long’ ma-auq ‘be too long’
39
d. Adverbials: the combination of adverbial morphemes and affixes
(prefixes or/and suffixes)
Stems Gloss Words Gloss
sauni ‘a short while’ nu-sauni ‘soon; later today’
ka-sauni ‘earlier today’
ta-sauni ‘earlier today’
tiaw ‘day before or’ nu-tiaw ‘tomorrow’
‘after today’ ka-tiaw ‘yesterday’
ta-tiaw ‘yesterday’
si-tiav-an ‘yesterday’
-ida ‘when’ nu-ida ‘when (in future)?’
ka-ida ‘when (in past)?’
ta-ida ‘when (in past)?’
si-ida-an ‘at what time?’
e. Particles: in addition to the independent interjections shown in section
2.1.1.4, quite a few clause-linking particles or conjunctions are attested in
Paiwan. Conjunctions must be used in clauses or sentence contexts in
combination with the other morphemes or independent words. In the
following examples, particles are in bold.
Particles Gloss Word Classes
sa ‘and’ sa-u sa kan ‘go and eat!’
ma-nu ‘but, however, then’ ma-nu t-ima ‘well, who is it then?’
ua ‘because’ ua avan ‘precisely because’
u-ka ‘if…’ u-ka-kn a kman ‘if I were to eat it...’
nu ‘when, if’ nu i-ka-sun a vaik ‘if you don’t go’
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aki ‘also’ aki nu-ida ‘whenever’
2.1.4 Compounds
Compounds are rather restricted in Paiwan and usually formed by adding
ligatures between the morphemes or words. Compounds are apparently ligature
constructions that are lexemes. Compounding is productive in numerals and
nouns. A few examples are shown in (21).
(21) Compounding Words Gloss
a. usa-a-puuq usapuuq ‘twenty’
two- Lig -ten
b. unm-a-puuq unmapuuq ‘sixty’
six-Lig-ten
c. pitu-a-puuq pituapuuq ‘seventy’
seven-Lig-ten
d. siva-a-idaj sivaidaj ‘nine hundred’
nine-Lig-ten
e. kanavat-a-lima kanavatalima ‘right hand’
right-Lig-hand
f. kua-a-vali kuaavali ‘strong wind’
strong-Lig-wind
g. kakavits-a-vavajan kakavitsavavajan ‘great grandmother’
grand-grand parents-Lig-woman
2.2 Syllable Structure
The minimal Paiwan syllable consists of just a vowel, while the maximal
syllable structure is CVVC, in which VV is a diphthong.
41
The types of Paiwan syllables are exemplified in (22).
(22) Syllable Type Paiwan Gloss
V i ‘at /in’
VV ui ‘yes’
CV va ‘lung’
CVC vat ‘husked rice’
CVVC vaik ‘to go’
No CC onset cluster was found. VV- and VC-syllables are very restricted in
Paiwan; they are either exclamations or colloquial expressions, and no more than
five words were found in each type. The metrical syllable structure of Paiwan is
illustrated in (23), in which ‘σ’ represents a syllable unit. Rhyme is independent,
because both V and VV-syllables were found.
(23) σ Onset Rhyme Nucleus Coda X X (X) X (C) V (C) Any of the five Paiwan vowels may occur at the nucleus position, and any of the
aboriginal consonants may occur in both onset and coda position. Each single
vowel or diphthong forms a syllable nucleus.
All of the possible consonant and vowel arrangements for monosyllabic
words are illustrated in (24).
(24) Monosyllabic words
σ
(C) V (V) (C)
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V i ‘at/in/
VC i s ‘exclamation (of disgust)’
CV s a ‘and’
CVC p u k ‘tree bean’
VV ui ‘yes’
CVV v au ‘feminine name’
CVVC ua ‘cattle’
Polysyllabic words occur with a maximum of two consonants appearing
in medial clusters. Such clusters always syllabify so that the initial consonant
occurs as the coda of one syllable, and the second consonant occurs as the onset
of the next syllable. The combination of syllable types in Paiwan disyllabic words
is given in (25).
(25) Disyllabic words
σ σ
(C) V (V) (C) (C) V (V) (C)
V.CV u t a ‘also’
V.CVC i u m ‘point’
CV.V k a i ‘language’
CV.CV k i ‘few’
CV.VV i au ‘many’
CV.CVV p a d ai ‘uncooked rice’
CV.CVC v n a n ‘deer’
CV.CVVC m a s au ‘to be bent down’
CVC.CVC u s p i t ‘thin’
CVC.CVV q u ts ui ‘tobacco pipe’
43
CVV.CV ts au b u ‘straw hat’
CVV.CVC c ai n a n ‘honeybee’
CVV.CVV ts au ts au ‘person’
CVV.CVVC t ai t ai ‘one of the pair’
Diphthongs au, ai, ui are phonetically realized as aw, aj, and uj at
syllable-final position, in which case glides w and j serve as the codas of the
syllables. Thus, surface syllable form of CVG is allowed. On the other hand, ui is
realized as wi at syllable-initial position, in which case surface GVC syllable is
allowed.
Blust (1988) proposes Austronesian Root Theory and argues that roots
have the phonemic shape CV(C), where the last consonant is rarely absent and
occurs only morpheme-finally, while meaning-associated segments consist of a
single consonant or, less typically of a pattern of consonants in successive
syllable. His proposal of root shape seems to apply to some of the Paiwan data.
In Paiwan, the CV(C) shape of roots is widely found. Yet, the final consonant of
the CVC shape of roots can be absent, and the number of cases contradictory to
Blust’s proposal is not small. Moreover, medial CVC morpheme shape is also
found, such as onomatopoeia qubqub ‘frog’, zuzu ‘thunder’, tsiptsip ‘clicking
noise’, qaqa ‘dog’s bark’, and kiskis ‘scraping’. The syllabification of these
words is CVC.CVC. Morpheme-medial C1.C2 clusters occur across syllable
boundaries, and consonant clusters within the same syllable do not occur. Many
roots in Paiwan are longer than the shape of CV(C).
44
2.3 Consonants
2.3.1 Consonant Inventory
The consonant inventory of Central Paiwan is shown in Table 2.1. Loan
phoneme is shown in parentheses. Central Paiwan has twenty-three consonant
phonemes and one loan consonant phoneme /h/. The glottal stop is somewhat
marginal. As far as synchronic phonology is concerned, the glottal stop phoneme
exists, though the number of words with glottal stop phoneme has been
somehow decreasing in Central and Southern Paiwan villages.
Table 2.1: Central Paiwan Consonants
Labial4 Alveolar Retroflex Palatal5 Velar Uvular Glottal
Plosive p b t d c k g q
Fricative v s z (h)
Affricate ts
Trill r6
Nasal m n
Lateral
Approximant w j7
Phoneme /ts/ is the only affricate found in Paiwan, and it is often realized
as palatalized [t] among the older speakers in Central Piuma Paiwan, even
without the phonetic condition of a following high front vowel /i/. In other
4 The labial category here includes two places of articulation: bilabial and labiodental. Phonemes /p/, /b/ and /m/ are bilabial consonants, whereas /v/ and /w/ are labiodental phonemes. 5 Palatal [c], [] and [] are transcribed as [tj], [dj] and [lj] respectively in earlier literature of Paiwan and the majority of the language teaching materials. 6 Central Paiwan /r/ has the allophonic alternation of voiced velar fricative []. 7 The phoneme /j/ is often conventionally transcribed as /y/.
45
words, palatalized allophone [t] may occur word-initially, medially, and finally
in Central Paiwan. However, both [ts] and its allophone [t] were attested in the
same village, among different ages of speakers. The distribution of [ts] and [t] is
not always predictable in one single informant’s speech, and in most cases the
two sounds are free variation8. Given that minimal pairs between [ts] and the
other phonemes were found, ts is treated as the phoneme.
Wolff (1988) has claimed that in the languages outside Formosa *t9 and *C
merged. In the languages which show different reflexes for *t and *C, the
differences between the reflexes of *t and *C are of two kinds: in most of the
languages which retain the distinction *t is reflected with phonemes that have
apical stop articulations and *C is reflected with phonemes which have affricate
or spirant articulation. However, *C was merged into /t/ in many Austronesian
languages. Although whether *C was a stop or affricate in PAN is not clear, the
fact that the affricate phoneme has been preserved in Formosan languages
indicates the significant status of Formosan languages in the reconstruction of
PAN. While many other Austronesian languages such as Fijian, Javanese, Malay
and Tagalog do not have this affricate phoneme, phoneme /ts/ has been attested
in many other Formosan languages such as Atayal, Amis, Bunun, Rukai, Tsou,
Pazih, Seedik, and Saaroa (cf. Dyen 1965; Li 2004). It is a phoneme in all the
varieties of Paiwan.
The consonant inventory of Northern Sandimen Paiwan is shown in Table
2.2. Northern Paiwan has twenty consonant phonemes, in which palatal sounds
/c/, //, and // are absent, and one loan phoneme /h/ is attested. Uvular /q/ 8 The author’s fieldwork observation has revealed that an older male speaker in the village used the [t] sound more often than the other middle-aged male and female speakers. A responsible account for the odd distribution requires further quantitative or sociolinguistic data and studies, which are out of the scope of this study. 9 The symbol ‘*’ in *t represents Proto-Austronesian (PAN) phonemes.
46
is also absent, compared with the consonant inventory of Central Paiwan. In
Northern Paiwan villages, the glottal stop phoneme // is the reflex of /q/,
derived from historical sound change. The phoneme status of glottal stop is
ascertained in Northern Paiwan but not assured in Central and Southern Paiwan.
Table 2.2: Northern Paiwan Consonants
Labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Plosive p b t d k g Fricative v s z (h)
Affricate ts
Trill r
Nasal m n
Lateral l10
Approximant w j
Conservative Northern Paiwan speakers or those who have frequent or
intensive contact with Central or Southern Paiwan speakers may retain the
phoneme features of the other regions. Phoneme merger occurs in Northern
Paiwan, and the minimal pairs between /c/ versus /t/and // versus /d/ were
not attested in the Northern villages. Therefore, the merger does not cause the
confusion of the pair sounds. The sound system of Northern Paiwan speakers
has become notable among the local Paiwan aborigines.
It has been reported in Wolff’s (1988) study that *q was a velar stop rather
than a glottal stop in PAN, and the glottal stop // is the reflex of *q or *k. In fact,
// has developed in some Austronesian languages such as Tagalog, Javanese,
Malay, Saisiyat and Tsou. While the phoneme status of the glottal stop is 10 The proto-phoneme */l/ was sometimes realized as palatal [] among older speakers in Northern Sandimen but not middle-aged or younger speakers.
47
marginal in Central Paiwan, it is a solid phoneme in Northern Paiwan, as it is the
reflex of /q/. Among the data collected in Northern Paiwan, quite a few glottal
stops // occur not only at word-initial position, but also at word-medial or final
position. Words in Northern Paiwan with a glottal stop at medial and final
position are shown in (26).
(26) Glottal stop // at word-medial or word-final position
Northern Paiwan Central Paiwan Gloss
vituan vituqan ‘star’
tsai tsaqi ‘excrement’
mausaw maqusav ‘thirsty’
tsual tsuqal ‘bone’
s sq ‘tear’
maipu maipuq ‘to fall’
maplu mapluq ‘house’
punu punuq ‘brain’
On the other hand, the consonant inventory of Southern Paiwan is shown
in Table 2.3. Southern Paiwan has twenty-three consonant phonemes and one
loan phoneme /h/. The status of the phoneme /r/ is controversial11 in earlier
historical reconstruction. The majority of the speakers in Mudan Southern
Paiwan prefer the sound [], though the other Southern villages adopt the sound
11 Dahl (1973) and Ho (1977) gave the voiced velar fricative // a higher ranking than the trill /r/ in the reconstruction of PAN, i.e., the historical derivation is from // to /r/. According to Ho (1977), the phoneme // is rather old, and // has become /r/ in the majority of Paiwan dialects. Yet, given that the phoneme /r/ has become essential among the Paiwan aborigines, and that the phonological description in the current study is synchronic, the phoneme /r/ is adopted in the Southern Paiwan inventory here.
48
[r] in the same phonological environments. Interestingly, the sound [] is usually
preserved in more conservative or isolated villages.
Table 2.3: Southern Paiwan Consonants
Labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Plosive p b t d c k g q
Fricative v s z (h)
Affricate ts
Trill r12
Nasal m n
Lateral 13
Approximant w j
The merger of Paiwan consonantal phonemes is shown in Table 2.4.
Although sound change does occur among those Paiwan villages, it is rather
difficult either to identify the origin of this historical change, or to single out one
specific reason for the synchronic variation within the Paiwan territory.
Table 2.4: The Correspondence of Paiwan Phonemes
Consonant Northern Central Southern GLOSS *c14 > t tula cua cua ‘eel’ * > d damu amuq amuq ‘blood’ * > l lt t t ‘lip’ *q > isi isiq isiq ‘urine’ *k > kivava kivava ivava ‘to play’
12 Southern Paiwan /r/ has the allophonic alternation of velar voiced fricative [], uvular voice fricative [], and glottal fricative [h]. Velar [] has become an important phonetic feature for Mudan Southern Paiwan speakers to identify themselves as Mudan residents. The speech community in Mudan is rather isolated in the mountainous area. 13 // is pronounced as [l] by many younger speakers in the Southern villages. 14 The symbol ‘*’ here represents the Proto-Paiwan phonemes reconstructed by Ho (1978).
49
Shown in Table 2.4, the merger between alveolar and palatal stops occurs
in Northern Paiwan, but it does not mean that all the Paiwan speakers living in
the Northern region cannot articulate palatal stops. The merger reported here is
more a tendency than a formal classification. For instance, the merger *c > t also
occurs in another Central Paiwan village reported in Ho’s (1978) study15. The
dialectal variation between /q/ and // in Paiwan has been reported in a lot of
earlier field studies (Ho 1977, 1978; Chang 2000; Governmental Teaching
Material 1993; Pulaluyan 2000). For instance, qias ‘moon’ is pronounced as ias
or ias ‘moon’ in Northern Paiwan villages. Nevertheless, the sound change has
been treated as sporadic variation in earlier studies. Although a dialectological
study of Paiwan is not the main concern of this study, an attempt has made here
to roughly classify the various sound groups of the Paiwan aborigines.
Consequently, a full dialectology of Paiwan remains to be done in the future.
Words illustrating Paiwan consonants are listed in Table 2.5.
Table 2.5: Words illustrating the consonants of Paiwan
CONSONANTS PAIWAN GLOSS
p pana ‘river’
b babu ‘blister’
t tata ‘ring’
d daqis ‘wrinkle’
c cakit ‘hunting knife’
apa ‘thigh’
k kaka ‘siblings’
g gadu ‘mountain’
15 See Ho (1978), pp604-677.
50
q qadaw ‘sun’
uqaaj ‘man’
v va ‘lung’
s sapuj ‘fire’
z zaum ‘water’
ts tsaqi ‘excrement’
(h) hana ‘flower’
n nakuja ‘bad’
m maap ‘to take’
abu ‘toad’
r raaj ‘sharp’
abac ‘guava’
ai ‘sparrow’
aap ‘lightning’
w uwats ‘vessel’
j jaja ‘to pick’
Minimal pairs exhibiting contrasts between the consonant phonemes are
given in (27). In a few cases where no minimal pairs exist in the corpus, sub-
minimal pairs are given.
(27) /p/ vs /b/ puk ‘tree bean’
buku ‘wart’
/m/ paa ‘feather’
maap ‘to take’
51
/t/ puu ‘kidney’
tutu ‘breast’
/v/ cukap ‘shoes’
cukav ‘turtle’
/b/ vs /d/ buqu ‘tumor’
dudu ‘coconut’
/m/ vs /n/ makuja ‘to tear’
nakuja ‘bad’
// cama ‘your father’
caa ‘the most’
/t/ vs /s/ cvut ‘trousers’
cvus ‘sugarcane’
/ts/ tutu ‘breast’
tutsu ‘now’
/n/ kmats ‘to bite’
kman ‘to eat’
/k/ pitu ‘seven’
piku ‘elbow’
/r/ tutu ‘breast’
ruvu ‘bird’s nest’
/d/ vs /t/ dudu ‘coconut’
tutu ‘breast’
// daqis ‘wrinkle’
aqis ‘forehead’
// qadav ‘sun’
52
qaav ‘mother-of-pearl’
/r/ vs // cara ‘golden ring’
caa ‘the most’
// vs /t/ maku ‘to bend’
tmaku ‘cigarette’
/z/ aik ‘spleen’
zaki ‘hemp’
// ava ‘female friend’
ava ‘flying squirrel’
/n/ vs /ts/ kian ‘to follow’
kiats ‘lightning’
// kina ‘mother’
kia ‘wax apple’
/r/ kakanan ‘dining table’
kakaran ‘awl’
// anav ‘shoal’
aav ‘fast’
// vs // iav ‘cat’
iav ‘many’
/q/ vuu ‘old’
vuuq ‘javelin’
/c/ vs // cmaps ‘to sieve’
maps ‘to blow’
53
/ts/ cu ‘three’
tsu ‘to extract tooth’
/t/16 cucu ‘butterfly’
tutu ‘breast’
cikajkaj ‘Formosan blue magpie’
tikaj ‘maggot’
/d/ pica ‘in; at’
pida ‘how many’
/k/ caa ‘the most’
kaa ‘thread’
// vs /d/ aasan ‘grasp in hand’
dadasan ‘turban ornament’
ii ‘buttocks’
dipdip ‘to cut into small pieces’
/g/ umaun ‘to arrive’
gumau ‘slow’
/k/ vs /g/ kua ‘gun’
gu ‘cattle’
// ack ‘dew’
ac ‘vegetables’
/q/ buku ‘wart’
buqu ‘tumor’
// kua ‘foot’
16 The minimal pair presented here was collected in Mudan Southern Paiwan. Yet, it is assured that /c/ and /t/ are contrastive before /i/.
54
uu ‘head’
// kuka ‘chicken’
kua ‘foot’
/g/ vs /q/ punug ‘corn’
punuq ‘brains’
/q/ vs // pntq ‘to break’
pnt ‘to twist’
/r/ cquq ‘cute; lovely’
cruq ‘egret’
// umaq ‘pus’
uma ‘house’
/s/ vs /z/ suman ‘to be engaged in’
zuma ‘to guard’
/ts/ ais ‘ tooth’
aits ‘skin’
/v/ sa ‘and’
va ‘lung’
/r/ sumanav ‘deliberately’
rumnav ‘to wash’
// cuvus ‘elm’
cuvu ‘bamboo sprout’
/z/ vs /ts/ kuzu ‘thousand’
kutsu ‘head louse’
// zaqu ‘soap’
55
aqu ‘owl’
// zuma ‘to guard’
umai ‘to follow’
/r/ zaman ‘torch’
rama ‘conger eel’
// vs /r/ uni ‘earthquake’
runi ‘sponge cucumber’
// au ‘honey’
au ‘eight’
The distinctive features presented here follow modified versions of Sound
Pattern of English (SPE) (cf. Chomsky and Halle, 1968; Halle and Clements, 1983;
Sagey 1986), encoding major classes, types of construction, manners of
articulation, and places of articulation. The distinctive features of the Paiwan
consonants are illustrated in Table 2.6.
Table 2.6: Distinctive Features of Paiwan Consonants
PLACE LABIAL CORONAL DORSAL
Feature p b m v w t d n ts s l r c j k g q
cons + + + + – + + + + + + + + + + + + – + + + +
cont – – – + + – – – ± + + + + – – – + + – – – –
son – – + – + – – + – – + + + – – – + + – – + –
ant + + + + + + – – – – – – –
dist – – – ± – – – – – – – – –
strid – – – – – – – – ± + – – – – – – – – – – – –
56
voiced – + + + + – + + – – + + + + – + + + – + + –
nasal – – + – – – – + – – – – – – – – – – – – + –
Feature geometry (Clement 1985; Sagey 1986; McCarthy 1988) is a model
in which the non-linear relationship between features and the way features can
be grouped into a hierarchy array of functional classes. In non-linear phonology,
features are organized in phonological representation. Feature may or may not
have values. The feature [LABIAL] refers to the group of labial segments, in
which any generalization involving non-labial segments cannot be expressed. In
a feature tree, features or particular groups of features can spread to neighboring
segments. The root node refers to the dominating node. McCarthy (1988)
proposes that the laryngeal and the supralaryngeal constituents make up the root
node. Following McCarthy (1988) and Broe (1992), the structure of feature
geometry is represented in (28).
(28)
⎥⎥⎥
⎦
⎤
⎢⎢⎢
⎣
⎡
SON
CONS
ROOT
LAR SUPRALAR nas spread voice constr cont lat PLACE LABIAL COR DORSAL RAD distr round ant distr back high low
Generally speaking, the distribution of Paiwan consonants is rather free.
The distribution of the loan phoneme and allophones, on the other hand, is more
57
restricted. Palatalized allophones [t], [], and [] are not always predictable in
Central Piuma Paiwan, among older speakers only. The surface distribution of
the consonants is given in Table 2.7. More discussion on consonantal allophones
is found in section 2.3.2.
Table 2.7: Paiwan Consonant Distribution17
Word-Initial Word-
Internal
Word-Final Consonants
#___i #___u #___a #___ V__V ___#
p pitsu ‘muscle of arm’
puu ‘kidney’
padaj ‘rice’
pdi ‘portion’
sapuj ‘fire’
kurap ‘skin
disease’ b bibi
‘duck’ buniq ‘mud’
bakits ‘bucket’
bru ‘hole’
bubu ‘bubble’
qubqub ‘frog’
t titsa ‘rake’
tutu ‘breasts’
taqd ‘to sleep’
tqu ‘horn’
putut ‘drill’
parut ‘true’
d dimpu ‘flour’
duku ‘poison’
dai ‘bottle’
dms ‘glutton’
gadu ‘mountain’
taqd ‘to sleep’
c cimiz ‘chin’
cuur ‘angle’
cababa ‘blister’
cbk ‘lake’
pacz ‘wood-chisel’
smuc ‘choking’
ii ‘buttocks’
urits ‘paste’
aan ‘road’
kap ‘footprint’
suu ‘lover’
qau ‘to lost’
k kii ‘cricket’
kupu ‘cup’
kasuj ‘trousers’
ka ‘torso’
skz ‘to stop’
vaik ‘to go’
g gidi ‘side’
gusam ‘weed’
ga ‘crab’
gmgm ‘fist’
sagi ‘file’
sgsg ‘tabu field’
q qipu ‘earth’
quzu ‘leaf’
qaup ‘to hunt’
qtsv ‘counter
part’
biqu ‘curve’
tidq ‘interval’
18 ia ‘to hide’
uqaaj ‘man’
aa ‘crow’
uz ‘pillar’
vituan ‘star’
uma ‘house'
17 Words in parentheses were attested in Central Piuma Paiwan only.
58
v viki ‘curve’
vukid ‘forest’
vasa ‘taro’
vku ‘wart’
kuva ‘blanket’
qtsv ‘counterpart’
s sua ‘ice’
saas ‘first’
snaj ‘song’
sasaw ‘outdoors’
qurpus ‘cloud’
z zuma ‘other’
zaman ‘torch’
zt ‘bow- string’
imaza ‘here’
kuraz ‘rake’
ts tsuvuq ‘bamboo sprout’
tsaa ‘to fry’
tsdas ‘sunlight’
patsaj ‘to die’
kurits ‘millet’
(h) hikuki ‘airplane’
huni ‘ship’
haku ‘box’
kuhugan ‘five
minutes’
t tima ‘nail’
(turu) ‘tip’
(tavi) ‘year’
(mata) ‘eye’
(qait) ‘skin’
ii ‘pillow’
ii ‘bride price’
itsu ‘this’
ii ‘goat’
n niqaj ‘newly-
born monkey’
nui ‘glue’
namaqar ‘weak’
nka ‘not
exist’
nana ‘sweet potato’
pakan ‘to feed’
m mimi ‘calf’
muka ‘papaya’
matsam ‘piquant’
mkuj ‘cucum-
ber’
qimi ‘cheeks’
sm ‘the dark’
iu ‘pain’
uus ‘nose’
adan ‘name’
uq ‘segment’
kuaj ‘dirt’
qia ‘dirt’
r rigi ‘horse’
rugus ‘twig’
ragd ‘pebble’
re ‘obstacle’
parut ‘true’
maqipr ‘unlucky’
isuk ‘to pull
out’
unaj ‘small knife’
atu ‘to boil (meat)’
t ‘lip’
riaj ‘skinny person’
kuri ‘dried food’
imu ‘fist’
uku ‘bend’
aqa ‘branch’
kan ‘tumpline’
aaj ‘toy’
pia ‘dish’
18 Words presented in this row were collected from Northern Paiwan.
59
igu ‘glory’
uqm ‘luck’
aaja ‘flag’
dp ‘to dive’
ii ‘pillow’
aqu ‘goiter’
w wi ‘yes’
wuvaj ‘feminine name’
wara ‘dried rice-
straw’
sawni ‘short while’
iaw ‘soup’
j yisu ‘Jesus’
jui ‘feminine name’
jai ‘coconot’
vavajan ‘woman’
quzmaj ‘dim’
As shown in Table 2.7, the palatalized /t/ is occasionally not conditional
and occurs word-initially, medially and finally in Central Piuma Paiwan. In
Northern Paiwan, the palatalized occur before a high front vowel only, i.e., the
occurrence of palatalized allophonic series is conditional. In Southern Paiwan,
however, the condition of a following high front vowel does not always cause
palatalization in all the attested words.
2.3.2 Allophones of Consonants
Paiwan consonantal segments are relatively crucial for the historical
reconstruction in that they demonstrate quite a few distinctive features which are
not attested in the other Formosan languages. All Formosan languages except
Paiwan have made extensive mergers and splits among obstruent segments.
According to Ferrell (1980), Paiwan is unique in being the only Formosan
language which does not merge any of the segments *t and *d19 under his
examination. On the other hand, there have been disputes over whether
retroflexion or palatalization is a distinctive feature in Proto-Austronesian. Wolff
(1988) proposes the hypothesis that the feature of palatalization characterized the
19 The southern Formosan segments under Ferrell’s (1980) examination are S, t2, d2, d, ty, t1, d1, and gy.
60
proto-system, and that the feature of retroflexion developed in the daughter
languages. The uniqueness of Paiwan has been supported by the facts that both
of the retroflexion or palatalization features are attested in the Paiwan language,
and that a series of palatal segments are found in Paiwan dialects.
In this section, synchronic consonantal allophones of Paiwan and their
distribution are elaborated and exemplified. Data presented in this section,
unless specified, were drawn from Central Paiwan.
2.3.2.1 Stops
Paiwan has a set of eleven stops, a voiced, and a voiceless series, at
bilabial, alveolar, palatal and velar place of articulation, plus a retroflex plosive, a
uvular and a glottal stop. Stops in Paiwan are usually unreleased in word-final
position. Alveolar stops are often palatalized before the high front vowel /i/.
/b/, /d/, //, /g/: The voiced stops, [+consonantal, +voiced, -sonorant,
-continuant]. Examples of allophones are given in (29).
(29) // [] voiced palatal stop. There are no restrictions on the
distribution of the sound. It occurs before and after any vowels.
/aqis/ [aqis] ‘forehead’
/suu/ [suu] ‘lover’
/qmia/ [qmia] ‘to sit’
/i/ [i] ‘buttocks’
[dj] voiced palatalized alveolar stop. It occurs before the high front
vowel /i/ in younger speaker’s speech only; [] and [dj] are in
free variation before [i] in younger speaker’s speech.
/i/ [dji] ‘buttocks’
61
/p/, /t/, /c/, /k/, /q/: The voiceless stops, [+consonantal, -voiced, -sonorant,
-continuant]. Examples of allophones are given in (30).
(30) /c/ [c] voiceless palatal stop. There are no restrictions on the
distribution of the sound. It occurs before and after any vowels.
/cua/ [cua] ‘eel’
/kmcab/ [kmcab] ‘to reap (with knife)’
/vuc/ [vuc] ‘squirrel’
/cia/ [cia] ‘abdomen’
[tj] voiceless palatalized alveolar stop. It occurs before the high
front vowel /i/ in younger speaker’s speech only; [c] and [tj]
are in free variation before [i] in younger speaker’s speech.
/cia/ [tjia] ‘abdomen’
//: voiced retroflex stop, [+consonantal, +voiced, -sonorant, -continuant].
(31) // [] retroflex stop. There are no restrictions on the distribution of
the sound. It occurs in any word position, before and after
any vowels.
/ava/ [ava] ‘female friend’
/kua/ [kua] ‘thick’
/ki/ [ki] ‘small’
/pia/ [pia] ‘dish’
//: voiceless glottal stop, [-voiced, -sonorant, +constricted], a clear phoneme in
Northern Paiwan but somewhat marginal in Central and Southern Paiwan.
62
2.3.2.2 Nasals
Paiwan has three nasal segments: /m/, /n/, and //, with the distinctive
features of [+consonantal, +voiced, +sonorant, -continuant, +nasal].
/m/, /n/, //: nasal stops. Nasal stops are assimilated with the articulation
place of its following consonant. Neutralization occurs among the three nasal
segments. The contrast among [n], [m], and [] is neutralized in the position
before another consonant. Each nasal phoneme has to precede a homorganic
consonant. Examples are given in (32)-(34).
(32) /m/ [m] bilabial nasal. It occurs before LABIAL consonants, before
and after any vowels. It does not occur as a syllable peak.
/matsa/ [matsa] ‘eye’
/umuq/ [umuq] ‘pus’
/pakim / [pakim] ‘to grope for’
/bamban/ [bamban] ‘corrugated iron’
(33) /n/ [n] alveolar nasal. It occurs before CORONAL consonants, before
and after any vowels, and in utterance-final position. It does
not occur as a syllable peak.
/nasi/ [nasi] ‘breath’
/kann/ [kann] ‘food’
/avan/ [avan] ‘exactly’
/nm/ [nm] ‘to push down’
(34) // [] velar nasal. It occurs before VELAR consonants, before and
after any vowels, and in utterance-final position. It does not
occur as a syllable peak.
/abu/ [abu] ‘toad’
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/mauaq/ [mauaq] ‘fortunate’
/ats/ [ats] ‘vegetable’
/sasiki/20 [sasiki] ‘camera’
2.3.2.3 Fricatives
Paiwan has three aboriginal fricatives /v/, /s/ and /z/, and one loan
fricative segment /h/. The feature [+continuant] distinguishes fricatives from
stop segments. /h/ is more productive in Central Piuma Paiwan and was found
not only in loan words but also in second-person singular affixation as an
alternation with the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/.
/v/: voiced labiodental fricative, [LABIAL, +consonantal, +voiced, -sonorant,
+continuant]. The features [-consonantal, +sonorant] distinguish [w] from [v].
Allophonic segment [w] only alternates with [v] at word-final position when its
preceding segment is also a vowel. The elaboration of morphophonemic
alternation between [w] and [v] is found in section 2.6.3.
(35) /v/ [v] voiced labiodental fricative. There are no restrictions on
the distribution of the sound [v].
/vai/ [vai] ‘board’
/saviki/ [saviki] ‘betel nut’
/ratsv/ [ratsv] ‘medicinal herbs’
/s/, /z/: alveolar fricatives, [CORONAL, +consonantal, -sonorant, +continuant,
+strident, +anterior]. Segments /s/ and /z/ have the palatalized allophonic
variants // and // respectively in Paiwan. The palatalized allophones occur
before a high front vowel /i/. In other words, the allophonic variation is usually
20 This is a Japanese borrowing compound, adopted from sasin ‘photo’ (<Japanese shashi ‘photography’) and -ki ‘machine’
64
conditional. However, the palatalized allophones are sometimes not conditional
in Central Piuma Paiwan (see § 2.3.1 above); it can appear in any phonological
environments. The features of [-anterior] and [+distributed] distinguishes [] and
[] from [s] and [z] respectively. Given that the distribution of the palatalized
sounds is more restricted, the alveolar sounds are treated as the phonemes.
Examples of allophones are shown in (36) and (37).
(36) /s/ [s] voiceless alveolar fricative. The distribution of the sound
is free except before the high front vowel /i/. It does not
occur before /i/.
/saa/ [saa] ‘companion’
/qasa/ [qasa] ‘chaff’
/qudas/ [qudas] ‘white hair’
[] voiceless post-alveolar fricative, and it occurs before the high
front vowel /i/ only. [] and [s] are allophones in
complementary distribution.
/sii/ [ii] ‘pillow’
/sasiq/ [saiq] ‘ant’
(37) /z/ [z] voiced alveolar fricative. The distribution of the sound is
free except before the high front vowel /i/. It does not occur
before /i/.
/zauzu/ [zauzu] ‘twilight’
/pazaa/ [pazaa] ‘price’
/rmz/ [rmz] ‘to ambush’
/rizariz/ [rizariz] ‘saw’
[] voiceless post-alveolar fricative, and it occurs before the
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high front vowel /i/ only. [] and [z] are allophones in
complementary distribution categorically.
/zian/ [ian] ‘men’s dance’
/sizi/ [ii] ‘goat’
2.3.2.4 Affricates
The segment /ts/ is the only affricate found in Paiwan, with the features
of [CORONAL, +consonantal, -sonorant, +anterior]. It has a palatalized
allophone [t]. The feature [-anterior] distinguishes the allophone [t] from [ts].
Some examples of allophones are shown in (38).
(38) /ts/ [ts] voiceless alveolar affricate. The distribution of the sound
is free except before the high front vowel /i/. It does not
occur before /i/.
/tsavi/ [tsavi] ‘year’
/kutsu/ [kutsu] ‘head louse’
/qaits/ [qaits] ‘skin’
[t] voiceless post-alveolar affricate, and it occurs before the
high front vowel /i/ only. [t] and [ts] are allophones in
complementary distribution categorically in Northern and
Southern Paiwan.
/tsiqaw/ [tiqaw] ‘fish’
/qatsiaj/ [qatiaj] ‘stone’
Note that the [t] allophone can occur anywhere in older speaker’s speech
in Central Piuma Paiwan. The sound [ts] is more restricted than [t] in the older
generation of that dialect. Yet, there are restrictions on the distribution of the
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palatalized sounds [] and [] in Central Piuma Paiwan. The unpredictable
occurrence of the sound [t] may be due to paralinguistic factors.
Thus far, we have seen the palatalized allophones of [], [], and [t] in
Paiwan. Phonological palatalization applies to both fricatives and the affricate.
2.3.2.5 Liquids
Paiwan has three liquids, two laterals //, // and one trill /r/. The three
liquid segments share the features of [CORONAL, +consonantal, +sonorant,
+continuant, -nasal]. The feature [-nasal] distinguishes liquids from nasals, and
the feature [+sonorant] distinguishes liquids from fricatives. Laterals // and
// are two distinct phonemes in that au ‘honey’ and au ‘eight’ are two separate
words, and that vai ‘wind’ differs from vai ‘board’. In addition to the different
places of articulation, the feature [+retroflex] also distinguishes // from //. In
Central and Southern Paiwan, the segment /r/ has a voiced velar fricative
allophone [], while flap or tap allophone was also found in speech flow. Some
examples of allophones are illustrated in (39)-(40).
(39) // [] palatal lateral. There are no restrictions on the distribution of
the sound. It occurs before and after any vowels.
/upc/ [upc] ‘plug’
/qaa/ [qaa] ‘enemy’
/aa/ [aa] ‘mouth’
/iku/ [iku] ‘bellows’
[lj] palatalized alveolar lateral, and it occurs before the high front
vowel /i/ only. It was attested in younger speaker’s speech. []
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and [lj] are allophones in free variation before [i] in younger
speaker’s speech.
/iku/ [ljiku] ‘bellows’
/maisuk/ [maljisuk] ‘to come out’
(40) /r/ [r] alveolar trill. There are no restrictions on the distribution of
the sound. It occurs before and after any vowels.
/ragd/ [ragd] ‘pepper’
/mirava/ [mirava] ‘to prepare oneself’
/aukur/ [aukur] ‘plant’
/qarut/ [qarut] ‘portion’
/qran/ [qran] ‘bed’
[] alveolar flap, and it occurs in intervocalic position;
[r] and [] are allophones in free variation in non-stressed
syllable.
/qarut/ [qáut] ‘portion’
[] retroflex lateral, and it occurs in syllable-initial
position only. [] and [r] are allophones in free variation in
syllable-initial position.
/qran/ [qan] ‘bed’
[] voiced velar fricative. It was attested in Central and Southern
Paiwan only. There are no restrictions on the distribution of
the sound. [] and [r] are allophones in free variation in
Central and Southern Paiwan.
/rusu/ [usu] ‘animal cage’
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/garuts/ [gauts] ‘comb’
/marvur/ [mavu] ‘damaged’
One important observation on the Paiwan allophones is the free variation
even for an individual speaker, more for younger speakers than older speakers.
Typically, younger speakers would sometimes use an alternative allophone, and
sometimes not.
2.4 Vowels
2.4.1 Vowel Inventory
The vowel inventory of Paiwan is shown in (41).
(41) i u
(o)
a
Vowel characteristics of Paiwan vowels are given in Table 2.8.
Table 2.8: Summary of Paiwan Vowel Characteristics
Vowel Characteristics
i high front unrounded
u high back rounded
central unrounded
a low central unrounded
(o) mid-high back rounded
Paiwan has four aboriginal vowels, and the back mid-high vowel /o/ is a
loan vowel, with relatively lower frequency of occurrence. Blust (1988) has noted
that almost all Austronesian specialists admit just four Proto-Austronesian
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vowels: a, , i, and u. Many of the words with the phoneme /o/ are associated
with Japanese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin loanwords. Therefore, /o/ is included in
the vowel inventory as a loan vowel here.
Words illustrating Paiwan vowels are listed in Table 2.9.
Table 2.9: Words illustrating the vowels of Paiwan
VOWEL PAIWAN GLOSS
i ii ‘shadow’
u ukuts ‘campanula’
sq ‘tear’
a ava ‘flying squirrel’
(o) ipon ‘Japan’
On the other hand, I did not find any vowel length as a linguistic
distinctive feature in the corpus.
Among the aboriginal vowels, only /a/, /i/ and /u/ can occur word-
initially. Schwa never appears word-initially as a single syllable or in diphthongs.
Minimal pairs exhibiting contrasts between the vowel phonemes are given
in (42).
(42) /i/ vs /u/ ita ‘one’
uta ‘also’
/a/ avi ‘seed of millet’
ava ‘flying squirrel’
// malimu ‘to be covered’
malmu ‘sudden’
/a/ vs /i/ aqas ‘material for charcoal’
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aqis ‘forehead’
/u/ a ‘crab’
u ‘cattle’
// kakanan ‘dining table’
kakann ‘food’
/u/ vs // quu ‘color’
qu ‘bundle’
/o/ ipun ‘Masculine name’
ipon ‘Japan’
In addition to single vowels, vowel sequences of two different vowels
were also attested. The clusters of vowels shown in (43) occur morpheme
internally. Internal vowel clusters are usually divided into different syllables,
with a few cases of diphthongs, which belong to a single slot of nucleus on the
syllable structure.
(43) Vowel clusters
a-series au tsautsau ‘person’
ai kailaan ‘stone mortar’
i-series ia cia ‘abdomen’
iu cpuiu ‘hot spring’
u-series ua uakits ‘to adhere’
ui kuii ‘leaf hat’
-series a aavvan ‘spring’
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There are a few restrictions of which vowels may occur together as
diphthongs. In a V1V2 sequence, V2 must be a different vowel from V1. When two
vowels of the same phoneme occur adjacent to each other, the vowel sequence is
phonetically realized as a single vowel without lengthening. Given that schwa
never occurs in diphthongs, Northern and Southern Paiwan aboriginal vowels
have a sonority scale in vowel sequences as follows: a > i, u. In other words, low
vowels are more sonorant than high vowels. A-series vowel clusters are falling-
sonority sequences, in which case the second vowel of the sequence usually
becomes an off-glide at word-final position, such as qadaw ‘sun’ and qavaj ‘millet
cake’. In rising-sonority sequences /ia/ and /ua/, with the first vowel less
sonorous than the second, the preceding high vowels are realized as prevocalic
glides, as shown in qajaqajam ‘bird’ and uwats ‘vessel’. However, a high vowel
preceding or following schwa cannot be realized as an off-glide or prevocalic
glide in any phonological and phonetic environments. In Central Paiwan, vowel
sonority affects the assignment of stress. More discussion on Central Paiwan
schwa is found in section 2.5.2.
2.4.2 Allophones of Vowels
In this section, the allophonic variation of Paiwan vowels and segmental
phonology are discussed. The articulation of vowels and the formation of glides
are elaborated and exemplified here.
Paiwan has four single vowels /i/, /u/, /a/, // and a loan vowel /o/.
All vowel segments are with the features [+syllabic, -consonantal, +sonorant].
Ferrell (1982) has reported in his dictionary that /i/, /u/, // are lowered
respectively to [e], [o], [] by some speakers. The restrictions on the allophones,
however, were not clear in Ferrell’s (1982) description. Although the allophone []
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was not attested in the current study, coarticulation effect was also found in
various phonetic contexts. Examples of allophones are given in (44)-(47).
(44) /i/ [i] high front unrounded vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of [i].
/iku/ [iku] ‘tail’
/pitsu/ [pitsu] ‘strength’
/qai/ [qai] ‘male friend’
/qipu/ [qipu] ‘dirt’
[e] mid high unrounded vowel.
It occurs in word-medial or word-final position when
adjacent to the uvular stop [q]. [e] and [i] are allophones
in free variation when adjacent to [q] in word non-initial
position.
/qipu/ [qepu] ‘dirt’
/tsaqi/ [tseqe] ‘excrement’
(45) /u/ [u] high back rounded vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of [u].
/uta/ [uta] ‘also’
/tsuvuq/ [tsuvuq] ‘bamboo sprout’
/puu/ [puu] ‘handle’
/uqaaj/ [uqaaj] ‘man’
[o] mid-high back rounded vowel.
It may occur in any syllable position when adjacent to
the uvular stop [q]. The distribution of the sound,
however, is not always predictable. [o] and [u] are
allophones in free variation.
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/punuq/ [punoq] ‘brain’
/iqu/ [iqo] ‘white of eyes’
/uqaaj/ [oqaaj] ‘man’
(46) /a/ [a] low central unrounded lax vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of [a].
/apu/ [apu] ‘betel-nut quid’
/masia/ [masia] ‘satiated’
/kavakan/ [kavakan] ‘water spring’
[] low back unrounded tense vowel, and it occurs in word-
internal or word-final position when adjacent to VELAR or
UVULAR consonantal segments. [] and [a] are allophones
in free variation when adjacent to VELAR or UVULAR
consonantal segments in word non-initial position.
/qaqa/ [qq] ‘crow’
/zaaq/ [zaq] ‘necklace’
/kavakan/ [kvkn] ‘water spring’
(47) // [] central unrounded lax vowel.
It occurs word-internally and word-finally only. It
cannot occur in vowel sequences as a member of diphthongs.
/tsaaq/ [tsaaq] ‘thunder’
/gats/ [gats] ‘itch’
/sa/ [sa] ‘to flinch’
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2.4.3 Glide Formation
Paiwan has two glide approximant segments /w/ and /j/. There has been
an issue on the status of glides in Formosan languages. Given that there are some
instances where glides are clearly associated with underlying vowels, and that
stress assignment is regular if some instances of underlying vowels are viewed as
consonants, it has been proposed in this study that glides should be treated as
phonemes in Paiwan. Although there are no clear minimal pairs showing
contrast between glides and high vowels, glide phonemes have a lot to do with
syllabification and stress assignment. Much more details on stress assignment are
found in section 2.5.
The Formation of Glides, as illustrated in (48), turns a stem into a well-
formed prosodic word. Formation (48b) applies to a word when the sonority in
V1V2 sequence is V1>V2, whereas Formation (48c) applies to a word when the
sonority in V1V2 sequence is V2>V1. As the vowel sonority hierarchy in Paiwan is
a> i, u, the vowel sequences /au/, /ai/, /ua/ and /ia/ are realized as [aw], [aj],
[wa], and [ja] respectively.
(48) Formation of Glides
a. σ σ b. σ c. σ
R R R OR R
N N N C N
X X X G G X
The evidence for the existence of glides comes from the morphophonemic
alternation between siaw (<siau) and siav ‘soup’ (§ 2.6.3). Given that the final coda
slot is reserved for [-syllabic] segment only, Formation of Glides must apply to
the vowel sequence au (au > aw; aw~av). Other Paiwan words such as aia (>ája)
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‘thus’, vaua (> váwa) ‘millet beer’ and uai (> úaj) ‘thorn’ also support the
argument that glides are distinct phonemes in Paiwan.
The phonemes /w/ and /j/ are glides with the features of [-consonantal,
+continuant, +sonorant, -syllabic, +high]. The feature [-consonantal]
distinguishes glides from the other consonantal phonemes, whereas the feature
[-syllabic] distinguishes glides from vowel phonemes.
Glides [w] and [j] do not occur before the schwa []. The distribution of the
glides is more restricted than the other consonantal phonemes. The fricative
sound [v] is the allophone of [w] in Paiwan under some conditions. Examples of
allophones are given in (49).
(49) /w/ [w] labial glide. It occurs in any word position. It does not
occur before a schwa.
/wara/ [wara] ‘dried rice-straw’
/uwats/ [uwats] ‘vessel’
/tsiqaw/ [tiqaw] ‘fish’
/kasiw/ [kaiw] ‘tree’
/mapuaw/ [mapuaw] ‘drunk’
[v] voiced labiodental fricative, and it occurs word-finally only.
[w] and [v] are allophones in free variation when it follows
/i/ or /a/ at word-final position in Northern Paiwan.
/tsiqaw/ [tiqav] ‘fish’
/kasiw/ [kaiv] ‘tree’
/mapuaw/ [mapuav] ‘drunk’
More discussion on the morphophonemic alternation between /w/ and
/v/ is found in section 2.6.3.
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2.5 Stress
2.5.1 Distribution of Stress
A Paiwan word typically has a single primary stress in its elicitation form.
Word stress usually falls on its penultimate syllable, when the word consists of a
single root or derived suffixed forms. Roots, stems, and derivation forms in
Paiwan can form a prosodic word to which stress can apply. In describing the
Paiwan facts I treat prosodic words as consisting of a stem plus a suffix sequence.
A prosodic word usually carries independent components of meanings. In
prosodic words without any schwa penult, all the dialects of Paiwan share the
same stress patterns. The data collected in this section were attested in Northern,
Central and Southern Paiwan. The statement of the stress patterns is general to
the dialects of Northern and Southern Paiwan, and it applies to every possible
prosodic word of these dialects. Yet, the distribution of stress stated in (50) does
not hold of Central Paiwan. In sequences with roots and affixes, the single
bracket ‘[‘ indicates the left edge of a prosodic word, given that roots and suffixes
are always at the right side of the single bracket and main stress was never
attested at the left side of the bracket. Note that the segmental differences
between Northern Paiwan and Southern Paiwan were ignored in the following
statement of the distribution.
(50) The distribution of main stress in Paiwan: main stress in Paiwan falls on the
final syllable only in the case of a monosyllabic prosodic word. Otherwise,
main stress is on the penult.
a. Stress in Roots
Stress Shape Root GLOSS
σ CV tú ‘burning charcoal’
σ CVC gá ‘crab’
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σ CVV váu ‘feminine name’
σ CVVC úa ‘cattle’
σσ CVCV píku ‘elbow’
σσ CVCVC púnuq ‘brain’
σσ CVVCVC qáuaj ‘dried-up fruit’
σσ CVCCVC ámam ‘ginger’
σσσ CVCVCV qarába ‘flat worm’
σσσ CVCVCVC vaátsuk ‘woodpecker’
b. Stress in Suffixed Forms: main stress falls on the penult of a suffixed form.
Stress Morpheme Suffixation GLOSS
σσ kan-ansuffix kánan ‘place where one eats’
σσσ vaik-aasuffix vaikáa ‘already going’
σσσ avats-ansuffix avátsan ‘muscle ache in legs’
σσσ saprefix-[um-ansuffix saúman ‘fragrance’
σσσσ inprefix-[itu -ansuffix initúan ‘garment’
σ σσσσ kaaprefix-[qua-ansuffix kaaquáan ‘rainy season’
c. Stress in Prefixed Forms: main stress falls on monosyllabic roots; it falls
on the penult of disyllabic or longer roots.
Stress Morpheme Prefixation GLOSS
σσ paprefix-[kan pakán ‘to feed’
σσ puprefix-[pan pupán ‘to bait’
σσσ paprefix-kiprefix-[kan pakikán ‘to feed (animals)’
σσσ maprefix-pprefix-[tad maptád ‘to dry (something)’
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σσσ saprefix-ruprefix-[uaq saruuáq ‘comfortable’
σσσ miprefix-[ima miíma ‘to wash hands’
σσσ kupreix-[vuvu kuvúvu ‘my grandparents’
σσσσ maprefix-[auq maáuq ‘too long’
σσσσ marprefix-[saa marsáa ‘two companions’
σσσσ paprefix-kiprefix-[ivak pakiívak ‘to take good care of’
σ σσσσ sprefix-minfix-a-[taihuku smataihúku ‘to Taipei’
d. Stress in Infixed Forms: main stress falls on monosyllabic roots; otherwise,
it is on the penult.
Stress Morpheme Infixation Form GLOSS
σσ k-minfix-[an kmán ‘to eat’
σσ k-minfix-[ats kmáts ‘to bite’
σσσ k-minfix-[ai kmái ‘to dig’
σσσσ sprefix-minfix-u-[kava smukáva ‘to take off clothes’
σ σσσσ kprefix-minfix-asi-[pana kmasipána ‘to come from river’
e. Generalization of the occurrence of main stress in Paiwan: main stress
falls on the final syllable only in the case of a monosyllabic prosodic word.
Otherwise, main stress falls on the penult of a prosodic word (Prwd).
(i) … σprefix-(C)stem-σinfix […σσ]Prwd
(ii) … σprefix-(C)stem-σinfix [σ]Prwd
Stress patterns in Paiwan can be divided into two types: quality-sensitive
and quality-insensitive. Kenstowicz (1996) has documented several diverse
languages in which vowel quality plays a comparable role in determining the
79
location of stress. He has proposed a vowel sonority hierarchy and showed that
peripheral vowels are more optimal than central vowels. In a quality-sensitive
stress system, stress seeks out the most optimal vowel. On the other hand,
Crowhurst and Michael (2005) have shown an interaction between quantity and
quality of stress. They have proposed universal scales of Quantity, Coda, Height,
and Diphthong, which are expected to be invariant across languages.
Central Paiwan has a quality-sensitive stress system, whereas the stress
system in Northern Paiwan and Southern Paiwan is quality-insensitive. In a
quality-sensitive stress system, the primary stress falls on the most sonorant or
the most optimal vowel. Vowel-sonority hierarchy interacts with the assignment
of stress. On the contrary, when vowel-sonority hierarchy does not play a role in
the assignment of stress, the system is quality-insensitive in terms of the
parameter in the typology of stress.
2.5.2 Stress Patterns in Central Paiwan
In Central Piuma Paiwan, the primary stress falls on either the
penultimate (second-right) or the final (rightmost) syllable, depending on
whether the penult has a schwa nucleus and the syllable number of the roots.
Schwa affects the stress system in Central Paiwan, but not that in Northern and
Southern Paiwan. The stress patterns in Central Paiwan are subject to the quality
of vowels, i.e., quality-sensitive.
The description of Central Paiwan stress is given in (51). Again, in
sequences with roots and affixes, the single bracket ‘[‘ indicates the left edge of a
prosodic word. In sequences with roots only or roots plus suffixes, no bracket is
placed. Roots and suffixes comprise prosodic words.
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(51) a. Stress goes on the final syllable (i) if the prosodic word is monosyllabic, or
(ii) if the penultimate syllable of the prosodic word has a schwa. Otherwise,
stress falls to the penult.
Central Paiwan Word Stress Gloss
i í ‘anus’
vat vát ‘husked rice’
puprefix-[pan pupán ‘to bait’
maprefix-pprefix-[tad maptád ‘to dry (something)’
paprefix-kiprefix-[kan pakikán ‘to feed (animals)’
k-minfix-[ats kmáts ‘to bite’
cvus cvús ‘sugarcane’
tsm tsm ‘thunder’
qurpus qurpús ‘cloud’
qapdu qapdú ‘gall’
isqs isqs ‘nit’
quivaraw quivaráw ‘rainbow’
b. In a disyllabic or longer prosodic word, stress falls on the penult of the
word, regardless of the number of prefixes, infixes or suffixes.
Central Paiwan Word Stress Gloss
piku píku ‘elbow’
qias qías ‘moon’
vitsuka vitsúka ‘stomach’
avatsaq avátsaq ‘horsefly’
kupreix-[vuvu kuvúvu ‘my grandparents’
maprefix-[auq maáuq ‘too long’
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sprefix-minfix-u-[kava smukáva ‘to take off clothes’
kan-ansuffix kánan ‘place where one eats’
avats-ansuffix avátsan ‘muscle ache in legs’
inprefix-[itu -ansuffix initúan ‘garment’
kaaprefix-[qua-ansuffix kaaquáan ‘rainy season’
The stress patterns in Central Paiwan are generalized as follows:
penultimate stress [… σ σ ]Prwd and final stress subject to the rightmost
monosyllabic root …[ σ]Prwd or subject to schwa penult […σσ]Prwd.
Main stress in Central Paiwan falls on the penultimate syllable of a word,
when the penult of the word does not have a schwa. If a word has a schwa in the
penult, it will receive final stress. Diphthongs do not attract stress, which is the
evidence for a Quantity Insensitive stress system. Secondary stress was not
attested in polysyllabic prosodic words of Central Paiwan.
On the other hand, a schwa syllable can bear stress only when it is the
final syllable of a word, and the word has another schwa in the penult. Some
examples are shown in (52).
(52) Paiwan Word Stress Gloss
a. / σ σ / tsk ‘spouse’
b. / σσ / sq ‘tear’
c. / σ σ σ / vtsq ‘short necklace’
d. / σ σ σ σ / quipp ‘moth’
e. / σ σ σ σ σ / qzmzmc ‘night’
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The weak schwa quality was supported not only by its phonetic nature
but also by its more restricted distribution than the other vowels in Paiwan (§
2.4.1). Schwa never appears word-initially as a single syllable. In V.CV syllable,
the first V cannot be a schwa, e.g., ita ‘one’, uta ‘also’, ata ‘and’, but no ta (*ta).
In addition, schwa never occurs in diphthongs: /ai/, /au/, /iu/, /ia/, /ua/,
/ui/, but no */a/, */u/, */i/, */a/, */i/, */u/. A schwa and its adjacent
vowel must be assigned into different syllables.
Now we turn to the question that a final schwa syllable can be stressed but
not to an antepenultimate schwa syllable of a word. In a word such as vtsq
‘short necklace’, where schwa nuclei are placed in initial (antepenultimate),
penultimate and final position, stress at the right edge of the word is the optimal
position for Central Paiwan stress. The right edge position must dominate the
constraint of left edge for quality-sensitive stress to get a final stressed schwa.
Peripheral vowels are more optimal stress-bearing units than the central vowel in
Central Paiwan. On the other hand, though Wolff (1993) has argued PAN *t
changed to an affricate under certain accentual conditions of the root, the
interaction between stress and consonants was not found in the current study.
To sum up, penult is the most prominent position for Central Paiwan
stress, but the right edge of a prosodic word becomes the optimal position for
stress among equal prominent vowels in the quality-sensitive stress system.
2.5.3 Stress Patterns in Northern and Southern Paiwan
Stress in Northern and Southern Paiwan differs from that in Central
Paiwan in its not seeking out the most prominent vowel. In other words, stress
patterns in Northern and Southern Paiwan are quality-insensitive. Penultimate
stress is the typical pattern in Northern and Central Paiwan, while monosyllabic
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roots also bear stress when it occurs at the rightmost position in a prosodic word.
The distribution of Northern and Southern Paiwan stress is shown in (53). Due to
the consonantal phoneme differences between Northern and Southern Paiwan,
data presented in (53) were drawn from Southern Paiwan only. Note that some
Northern Paiwan speakers who have frequent contact with Central Paiwan
speakers may acquire or learn a quality-sensitive stress. Again, in sequences with
roots and prefixes or infixes, the single bracket ‘[‘ indicates the left edge of a
prosodic word.
(53) a. When a monosyllabic root is the rightmost syllable of a Paiwan word,
stress falls on the nucleus of the syllable, regardless of the number of
prefixes or infixes
Southern Paiwan Word Stress Gloss
va vá ‘lung’
puq púq ‘limestone’
at át ‘grass (for mat)’
puprefix-[pan pupán ‘to bait’
maprefix-pprefix-[tad maptád ‘to dry (something)’
k-minfix-[ats kmáts ‘to bite’
b. In a disyllabic or longer prosodic word, stress falls on the penult of the
word, regardless of the number of prefixes, infixes or suffixes.
Southern Paiwan Word Stress Gloss
iku íku ‘tail’
ava áva ‘flying squirrel’
qacuvi qacúvi ‘snake’
sma sma ‘tongue’
t t ‘lip’
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kupreix-[vuvu kuvúvu ‘my grandparents’
maprefix-[auq maáuq ‘too long’
sprefix-minfix-u-[kava smukáva ‘to take off clothes’
kan-ansuffix kánan ‘place where one eats’
avats-ansuffix avátsan ‘muscle ache in legs’
inprefix-[itu -ansuffix initúan ‘garment’
kaaprefix-[qua-ansuffix kaaquáan ‘rainy season’
saprefix-kaprefix-[va-asuffix sakaváa ‘be very happy’
Schwa does not affect the stress assignment in Northern and Southern
Paiwan. Examples of contrastive stress between Central and Southern Paiwan
are given in (54).
(54) Word Southern Stress Central Stress Gloss
a. sau sau saú ‘heavy’
b. km km km ‘to know’
c. ki ki kí ‘small’
d. cvs cvs cvs ‘sugarcane’
e. qasu qasu qasú ‘pestle’
f. ka-v-v-an kavvan kavván ‘sky’
g. s-m-u-qv smuqv smuqv ‘to open (a door)’
Penultimate position is the optimal parameter for stress assignment in
Northern and Southern Paiwan. A schwa nucleus has nothing to do with the
prominent position for stress. In such a quality-insensitive system, stress always
seeks out the penult in a prosodic word. The stress patterns in Northern and
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Southern Paiwan are summarized as follows: penultimate stress […σσ]Prwd and
final stress subject to the rightmost monosyllabic root in a prosodic word.
The metrical algorithm set up for penultimate stress in Northern and
Central Paiwan is presented in (55). It also applies to every possible prosodic
word without schwa penult in Central Paiwan.
(55) Penultimate Stress in Paiwan Words
a. Foot Construction: Form syllabic trochee foot at the right edge
Degenerate feet are permitted in strong position
b. Word Layer Construction: End Rule Right
(x ) (x )
(x .) (x .)
… σ σ σ # and # σ σ #
Words in (56) are generated by the rules shown in (55).
(56) a. (x) b. (x ) c. ( x )
(x) (x .) (x .)
σ σ σ σ σ σ
vát pú u pa í u
‘husked rice’ ‘kidney’ ‘surroundings’
d. ( x ) e. ( x )
(x .) (x .)
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
va cu á jan ma ma z í an
‘iron’ ‘chieftain’
Stress in monosyllabic words was attested. Since initial degenerate feet in
odd-syllable words such as (56c) and (56e) are not placed in strong position, they
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may be forbidden. Note that secondary stress was not attested in polysyllabic
prosodic words in Northern and Southern Paiwan.
Stress in compounds or longer prosodic words also follow the principles
of foot and word layer construction stated in (55). Examples are given in (57).
(57) a. ( x ) Word Layer b. ( x )
(x .) Foot Layer (x .)
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
ka na va ta i ma ku a a va i
kanavat # a # ima kua # a # vai
right-conjunction-hand strong-conjunction-wind
‘right hand’ ‘strong wind’
c. ( x )
(x .)
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
ka ka vi tsa va va jan
kakavits # a # vavajan
grand-grand parents-conjunction-woman
‘great grandmother’
Stress falls on the penult in numerals, both bases and complex numerals.
The stress pattern of complex numerals is illustrated in (58). The parenthesis ‘[ ]’
in (58) indicates a complex numeral boundary. A word boundary may be
embedded in a complex numeral. In other words, a complex numeral may be
composed of two or more base words.
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(58) Stress in complex numerals
a. 21 (x)
(x) (x) (x) (x)
[σσ]W1 [σσ]W2[σσ]W3[σσ]W4
[[usa] W1#a#[puuq] W2[saka]W3[ita]W4]complex numeral
twenty plus one
Penultimate Stress: usapuuqsakaíta ‘twenty-one’
b. 101 (x)
(x) (x) (x)
[σσ]W1 [σσ]W2[σσ]W3
[[ta-idaj]W1 [saka]W2 [ita]W3]complex numeral
hundred plus one
Penultimate Stress: taidajsakaíta ‘one hundred and one’
c. 110 (x)
(x) (x) (x)
[σσ]W1 [σσ]W2[σσσ]W3
[[ta-idaj]W1[saka]W2[tapuuq]W3]complex numeral
hundred plus ten
Penultimate Stress: taidajsakatapúuq ‘one hundred and ten’
Examples in (58) have shown that stress patterns are predictable in
complex numerals, which confirm the description of general stress patterns.
None of the existing fieldwork reports have classified Paiwan stress units into
prefixed, infixed and suffixed categories, though affixation affects the assignment
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of stress in a predictable way at word level19. In this study, roots and suffixes
form a prosodic word, in which word stress in Paiwan falls on the penultimate
syllable of the word. Prefixes and infixes are never stressed.
Earlier work on Proto-Austronesian (PAN) stress mainly focuses on the
comparison and the reconstruction of the proto forms. Wolff (1993) has proposed
that PAN roots had a stress contrast in the final two syllables of the root.
According to him, there were two kinds of roots: those with a stressed penult
and those with a stressed final syllable. By comparing stress patterns in Formosa
and the Philippines, Wolff (1993) argues that in PAN the stress patterns fell on
the penult of the root if it was long (or accented) and on the final syllable of the
root if the penult was short (or unaccented). In the current study, it has been
proved that vowel length is not phonemic in Paiwan, as no sufficient minimal
pairs were attested. Vowel length does not affect the assignment of stress, and
vowel quality, rather than vowel length, affects the assignment of stress in
Central Paiwan. Vowel length may be a phonetic realization or a correlate of
stress, not necessarily to be a prerequisite to trigger stress in Paiwan.
Although prefixes or infixes did not affect stress assignment in the cases of
Paiwan, other types of affixation have been reported to affect PAN or
Austronesian stress in earlier studies (Wolff 1993; Zorc 1993). There was the
phenomenon of accent shift whereby the affixed form had the accentual pattern
opposite to the pattern of the root, and some affixes dictate accent placement on
derivations. Zorc (1993) classifies Austronesian stress and proposes that certain
syntactic classes, such as pronouns, deictics, interrogatives, negatives, and
numerals had accent on the final syllable. Furthermore, grammatical use of
19 Gordon (2002) has proposed a computer-generated factorial typology of quantity-insensitive stress and has provided a list of languages with quantity-insensitive stress. Paiwan has been placed in the category of penult (of phrase) stress pattern, and the word stress pattern in Paiwan is not clear yet in his study.
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accent is proposed for verbs (in the imperative), for names or kin nouns and
stative adjectives all of which have intonation falling on the final syllable,
whereas the root word probably had accent on the penult. Syntactic classes in
Paiwan, as far as I have observed, do not affect the assignment of word stress in
Central Piuma Paiwan.
2.6 Morphophonemics
This section deals with morphophonemic alternations in Paiwan. Ferrell
(1982) has reported that allophonic variants of segmental phonemes are very
limited in Paiwan and that the segments in question are the consonant /w/ and
the schwa vowel //. Nevertheless, in addition to these two segments mentioned
in Ferrell’s (1982) field report, other types of morphophonemic alternation were
also found in the current project. In the following sections, unstressed vowel
deletion, the alternation of vowels and affixes, the alternation between glide /w/
and fricative/v/, and reduplication are elaborated and exemplified.
2.6.1 Unstressed Vowel Deletion
Vowel deletion occurs in pre-stressed (unstressed) schwa syllables, in fast
speech or natural discourse. It is an alternation in the informant’s speech. As we
have seen that stress in Paiwan usually falls on the penultimate or the final
syllable of a prosodic word, the weak schwa preceding the main stress become
the trough position for elision. On the contrary, other peripheral vowels are not
deleted in the same position. The distribution of vowel deletion has a bearing on
the occurrence of stress, the sonority of vowels, and the position in words.
Stressed and sonorant vowels are the peak prominences, whereas unstressed and
weak vowels are the troughs. Unstressed schwa nuclei in word-initial position
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are retained, while the ones in word-medial position are deleted. A few examples
of elision alternation (59a-e) and the comparison data (59f-h) drawn from Central
Paiwan are shown as follows.
(59) Paiwan Morphemes Alternation Gloss
a. /k-in-sa/ [kinsá]~ [kinsá] ‘cooked food’
b. /ts-m-aaq/ [tsmáaq]~[tsmáaq] ‘thunderclap’
c. /t-m-k/ [tmk]~[tk] ‘to drink’
d. /pa-p-tad/ [paptád]~[paptád] ‘to dry something’
e. /t-in-kaz-an/ [tinkázan]~[tikázan] ‘beehive’
Paiwan Morphemes Surface Forms Gloss
f. /t-m-uku/ [tsmúku] ‘to precede’
g. /ma-pa-pau/ [mapapáu] ‘to beat each other’
h. /a-isuk-an/ [aisúkan] ‘drawer’
Schwa is in the form of /k-in-sa/, as shown in (59a), because the root of
the word is ksa ‘food’. Schwa is produced in the root ksa ‘food’ but may not be
produced in the word k-in-sá ‘cooked food’. Similarly, schwa is part of the root
in the words (59b, c, e) and part of the infix morpheme in the words (59d, f).
Among the data examined, unstressed vowel deletion occurs only in syllables
with a schwa nucleus preceding main stress but not elsewhere, in word-medial
position but not elsewhere. A word-medial schwa is deleted before a stressed
syllable, which will result in consonantal clusters within a prosodic word. Word-
medial schwa deletion and word-medial schwa are in free variation preceding
main stress in natural discourse.
As we have noted that schwa affects the assignment of stress in Central
Paiwan, the weak schwa has been reported to be the optimal vowel for syllable
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trough, i.e., an unstressed slot within a prosodic word. The weak quality of
schwa is phonetically based. Schwa may represent a neutral tongue position or
an overall average of the vowel inventory (Browman & Goldstein 1992), and it
has been proposed that schwa is best modeled as a non-target vowel in Dutch
(Van Bergem 1994). From coarticulation perspective, the tendency for the mid-
point of the vowel // to be influenced in any consistent way by the place of a
preceding consonant is quite weak (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996). The segment
of schwa has been attested in the other Formosan languages such as Amis,
Puyuma, Rukai, and Saisiyat. Given that schwa is part of the root in the prosodic
words, it is proposed here that schwa is a segmental phoneme in Paiwan. The
deletion of the schwa segment is due to its position in words and the distribution
of word stress.
2.6.2 Alternation of Vowels and Affixes
As we have seen in section 2.6.1, an unstressed schwa nucleus may be
deleted and results in syllable loss. On the other hand, an unstressed vowel may
alternate with a schwa. The alternation between schwas and unstressed high
vowels occurs not only in fast speech but also in slow elicitation. Some examples
are given in (60). The alternation between the low vowel a and the weak schwa,
however, was not attested, in stressed or unstressed position.
(60) Alternation between schwas and unstressed high vowels
Schwa Alternation Gloss
a. [gádu] ~ [gád] ‘mountain’
b. [bnurus] ~ [bnúrs] ‘to spurt’
c. [tsuqk] ~ [tsqk] ‘bone’
d. [qurpus] ~ [qrpús] ‘cloud’
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e. [cigraw] ~ [cgráv] ‘larynx’
Shown in (60), the alternation between high vowels u and i and schwa
occurs in unstressed position. The absence of the low vowel in this type of
alternation has something to do with the hierarchy of vowel sonority. As the low
vowel is the most sonorant vowel, it has been an opposite extreme from the
schwa. High vowels, on the other hand, are less sonorant and have become better
candidates for the schwa alternation.
Another type of Focus morpheme alternation, which has been reported in
Ferrell’s (1982) dictionary, was also found in the current study. In Paiwan, the
morpheme for Agent Focus is VC-infix /-m-/. Agent Focus infixes attach to
roots or stems immediately after the initial consonant of the stem morpheme. The
distribution of the Agent Focus forms is shown in (61).
(61) Morphemes Surface Forms Gloss
a. /q-m-uz/ [qmuz] ‘to support’
b. /k-m-upu/ [kmupu] ‘to pure into cup’
c. /t-m-ga/ [tmga] ‘to waken’
d. /-m-avis/ [mavis] ‘to grip’
e. /s-m-a/ [sma] ‘to use pillow’
f. /-m-ivu/ [mivu] ‘to invade’
g. /p-m-aisi/ [pnaisi] ‘to disobey taboo’
h. /m-m-atsa/ [mnatsa] ‘to see with eyes’
i. /v-m-aa/ [vnaa] ‘to be healthy’
j. /b-m-ru/ [bnru] ‘to make a hole’
Two surface forms of the Agent Focus morpheme have been observed in
the infixation: -m- and -n-. The form -m- occurs after DORSAL and
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CORONAL initial consonants, as shown in (61a-f), whereas -n- occurs after
LABIAL initial consonants but not elsewhere, as shown in (61g-j). The observable
fact indicates the infix form -n- alternates with -m- after a LABIAL initial
consonant of the stem morpheme. The two Agent Focus forms -m- and -n- are
in complementary distribution, as the former does not occur after a LABIAL but
the latter occurs after a LABIAL initial consonant only.
2.6.3 Alternation between Glide /w/ and Fricative/v/
Quite a few alternations between glides and fricatives or liquids in
Formosan languages have been reported in Li’s (1974) study, and he has argued
that the morphophonemic alternations have a bearing on the controversial issue
of the phonetic value of two PAN phonemes.
In Paiwan, only the alternation between glides and fricatives was attested.
More specifically, the alternation between /w/ and /v/ was found in all the
Paiwan villages investigated in the current study. Earlier fieldwork reports on
Paiwan (Ferrell 1982; Chang 2000) have agreed with the derivation from /w/ to
/v/, but not from /v/ to /w/. Moreover, the alternation has been described as a
free alternation in their reports. It has been found that in Central Piuma Paiwan,
however, the phoneme /v/ consistently dominates the syllable coda slot in all
the cases examined, in word-final position, across morpheme and word
boundaries, in the same phonological environments. On the other hand, the glide
w in Southern Paiwan does not seem to alternate with the fricative in word-final
position or across word boundaries, but it consistently alternates with the
fricative v in suffixed words.
As we have seen in section 2.3.1, there are no restrictions on the
distribution of the fricative /v/ in Paiwan, while the glide /w/ does not occur
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before a schwa. The distribution of the glide /w/ is more restricted, though it
also occurs word-medially and word-finally. There are many cases of /w/ and
/v/ morphophonemic alternation in Paiwan. Some examples are illustrated in
(62). In these examples, the symbol ‘#’ indicates a lexical word boundary;
whereas ‘-‘ indicates a morpheme boundary.
(62) GLOSS Central Piuma Paiwan Southern Paiwan
a. ‘drunk’ mapuav mapuaw
‘I’m drunk.’ mapuav#aa#kn mapuaw#aa#kn
b. ‘thirsty’ mapusav mapusaw
‘I’m thirsty.’ mapusav#aa# akn mapusaw#aa#akn
c. ‘many’ iav iaw
‘many things’ iav#a#nmaa iaw#a#nmaa
d. ‘to wash’ smnav smnaw
‘to wash bowls’ smnav#ta#capaq smnaw#ta#capaq
e. ‘fish’ tsiqav tsiqaw
‘big fish’ tsiqav#a#qatsa tsiqaw#a#qatsa
‘container for fish’ pu-tsiqav-an pu-tsiqav-an
f. ‘tree’ kasiv kasiw
‘tree!’ (Imperative) kasiv-u kasiv-u
g. ‘roof’ qaiv qaiw
‘ceiling’ q-in-aiv-an q-in-aiv-an
h. ‘soup’ siav siaw
‘soup-bowl’ pu-siav-an pu-siav-an
i. ‘high’ vavav vavaw
‘highest’ vava-vavav-an vava-vavav-an
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Shown in (62a-d), glide coda /w/ has become fricative /v/ in Central
Paiwan. Fricative /v/ occurs in word-final position after /i/and /a/, whereas
glide /w/ does not occur word-finally. The labial glide becomes the labial
fricative with or without suffixation in Central Paiwan. Examples in (62e) show
the boundary contrast between lexical words and morphemes. Examples in (62e-i)
show the alternation between /w/ and /v/ in Southern Paiwan. The alternation
between /w/ and /v/ occurs within a prosodic word, across a morpheme
boundary but not across a lexical word boundary in Southern Paiwan. In
Northern Paiwan, on the other hand, either /w/ or /v/ coda is acceptable in the
roots or stems, but /v/ is the only legitimate segment after suffixation across a
morpheme boundary within a prosodic word. The sounds [w] and [v] are
allophones in free variation when they follow /i/ or /a/ at word-final position
in Northern Paiwan but in complementary distribution in Central Paiwan. Yet,
the alternation between [w] and [v] at word-final position was not attested in
Southern Paiwan. Rather, only the alternation between /w/ and /v/ within a
prosodic word was attested in Southern Paiwan.
On the other hand, the alternation between /w/ and /v/ must occur in
suffixed forms in Northern and Southern Paiwan. Note that the alternation
occurs when the glide is the second member of the diphthong only. The labial
glide becomes the labial fricative when it follows /i/ or /a/ at stem-final
position followed by suffix morphemes beginning with a vowel within a
prosodic word. The alternation rule is stated in (63).
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(63) Paiwan Morphophonemic Alternation Rule
/ V____]⎥⎥⎥⎥
⎦
⎤
⎢⎢⎢⎢
⎣
⎡
+++
contlabialsoncons-
⎥⎦
⎤⎢⎣
⎡+son-cons
stem -V…]suffix]Prwd
where ‘-’ is a morpheme boundary
Li (1974) has examined the direction of this type of alternation, drawn
from the Rukai language data and the evidence in other languages as well. He
argues that the solution of lenition from a full consonant to a glide is rejected,
because many Paiwan words end with a phoneme /v/ in the same phonological
environments. From the perspective of the reconstruction of PAN, he also argues
that reflexes of Formosan and Philippine languages for PAN *y and *w in the
word-final position are mostly y and w respectively, while in the non-final
positions their reflexes vary from approximants to fricatives or liquids. Li (1974)
has concluded in his study that the simplest solution for the alternation between
glides and fricatives or liquids is to treat glide approximants as the proto-
phonemes, and derive historically all the various fricatives and liquids in the
daughter languages. The Formosan languages under Li’s (1974) examination
have quite parallel developments for the two proto-phonemes, PAN *y and *w.
2.6.4 Reduplication
Paiwan has at least two distinct types of reduplication: root reduplication
and Ca-reduplication. Root reduplication can be divided into full reduplication
and partial reduplication. Ca-reduplication copies the first consonant of the base
and adds the vowel segment /a/ to the reduplicant. It has been reported in
earlier studies (Chang 2000; Tseng 2003) that root reduplication signifies
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intensification, continuous aspect, and plurality, whereas Ca-reduplication is
either a nominalization or a reciprocal marker. Examples in (64) and (65)
respectively illustrate full root reduplication and partial reduplication, whereas
Ca-reduplication examples are given in (66). Among the cases examined, the
majority of the reduplicants copy the form of CV or CVCV syllable from the
bases. The data collected in Central Paiwan are the bases for this section.
(64) Full Root Reduplication in Paiwan: full root reduplication usually occurs in
nouns or stative verbs. The bases in this type of reduplication are in the shape of
CVCV, and they are either nouns or stative verbs. Full reduplication signifies
intensification and plurality here. Examples are given as follows.
Root Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. ki ‘small’ ki-kí ‘very small’
b. kua ‘leg’ kua-kúa ‘animal’s leg’
c. buqu ‘ankle’ buqu-búqu ‘knuckles’
d. gadu ‘mountain’ gadu-gádu ‘mountain peak’
e. gidi ‘flank’ gidi-gídi ‘side’
(65) Partial Root Reduplication in Paiwan: reduplicants (Red) usually do not
copy the final coda of the bases.
BASE Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. tsm ‘plants’ tsRed-tsm ‘grass field’
b. uku ‘a bend’ uku Red-úku ‘a hooked knife’
c. -uaq20 ‘good’ uaRed-úaq ‘full moon’
d. vukid ‘forest’ vukiRed-vúkid ‘eyebrow’
e. vudas ‘sand’ vudaRed-vúdas ‘a stretch of sand’
20 The word nauaq means good, and the root -uaq is usually preceded by a prefix.
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f. daas ‘top rim’ daaRed-dáas ‘edge’
g. kasiv ‘tree’ kasiRed-kásiv ‘woodlands’
h. kua ‘firearm’ kuaRed -kúa ‘pistol’
i. kaai ‘a rag’ kaai-ái ‘small bee’
j. kaau ‘small fish basket’ kaau-áu ‘very small fish basket’
(66) Ca-Reduplication in Paiwan: reduplicants copy the first consonant of the
base and adds the vowel segment /a/ to the reduplicants. In the following
examples, reduplicants are underlined.
Lexicon Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. pa-qi ‘be on one side of’ pa-qa-qí ‘to reconcile’
b. i ‘to laugh’ pa-a-i-í ‘to laugh together’
c. ma-gua ‘to be interrupted’ ma-ga-gúa ‘to break off marriage’
d. isi ‘bride-price’ ma-a-isi-ísi ‘wedding’
e. pau ‘a stick’ ma-pa-páu ‘to beat each other
with sticks’
f. ma-au ‘to become placated’ ma-a-áu ‘to become friendly
with each other’
The only consistent pattern found in the examples above is the place for
stress assignment, either at penult or at the ultima, depending on the occurrence
of the schwa penult and the number of the syllables in the bases. The prosodic
patterns found Paiwan in reduplication indicate stress is usually retained in the
bases after reduplication.
It is proposed here that the syllable structure of a reduplicant has a lot to
do with partial reduplication. When the base has a –CVC syllable at its final
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position, reduplicants in partial reduplication copy the –CV shape from the base
and prefix it to the base. This indicates that CVC syllable in word-medial
position is more restricted than in word-final position. Prefixing reduplication
applies to most of the cases in (65), as disyllabic or monosyllabic reduplicants
usually copy CV or CVCV sequences from the base and attach to the initial
position of the reduplicated words. Evidence for infixing reduplication comes
from the CVCV reduplicants in the same phonological environments.
Reduplicants infix into a base, as shown in the word a-mac-mack-ansuffix ‘many
leeches’ (Base: amack ‘mountain leech’), and the initial CV syllable of the base
becomes a prefix.
Nominalization suffixes and reduplicated prefixes may attach to the bases
in full or partial reduplication. Examples are shown in (67), in which
reduplicants are underlined.
(67) Prefixing Reduplication with Suffixation
Lexicon Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. ui ‘thorn’ ui-uí-ansuffix ‘briar patch’
b. guris ‘spot’ guri-gurís-ansuffix ‘a spotted animals’
c. ikuz ‘behind’ iku-ikúz-ansuffix ‘the most back’
d. auq ‘long’ a-aúq-ansuffix ‘length’
e. gicgic ‘to cut into pieces’ ga-gicgíc-ansuffix ‘something to be
cut into small pieces’
There are also some cases of complex infixing reduplication, in which
reduplicants are embedded in the sequences with preceding prefixes and
following roots. Some examples are illustrated in (68).
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(68) Infixing Reduplication
Lexicon Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. ki-ivak ‘to love’ marprefix-ki-ivaRed-ívak ‘loving one another’
b. pa-tsun ‘to see’ pa-paprefix-tsuRed-tsún ‘to show to people’
c. kuya ‘a defect’ naprefix-kuyaRed-kúya ‘be defective’
d. ma-kuda ‘how is it’ maprefix-kudaRed-kúda ‘how much’
e. s-kuu ‘ugly’ naprefix-s-kuuRed-kúu ‘somewhat ugly’
f. ma-avar ‘a meeting’ maprefix-avaRed-ávar ‘to converse’
g. ukay ‘a swing’ maprefix-ukaRed-úkay ‘be swinging’
Given that stress is fixed to the base of the reduplicated words, the
assignment of stress in Paiwan reduplication obeys the general principles of
word stress. The syllable structure of Paiwan reduplicants is usually
monosyllabic CV or disyllabic CVCV, which indicates the subsets of CV or
CVCV syllables are generally allowed in the Paiwan language.
To sum up, reduplication in Paiwan preserves full phonological identity
of the base, as it copies the syllable structure of the bases and the restriction on
the syllable types. Reduplication does not affect the assignment of stress in bases
and reduplicated words, in quality-sensitive or quality-insensitive stress system.
2.7 The Phonological Phrase
The phonological phrase provides the domain for secondary stress in
Paiwan. A string of sequences has primary and secondary stress in a
phonological phrase. The phonological phrase is defined as the minimal string
within which word stresses are stronger than the other. It is possible to pause
briefly after a phonological phrase. A phonological phrase may consist of at least
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one construction marker or ligature, which connects two independent words or
more in Paiwan. The combination of two or more words forms a grammatical
phrase. The rightmost prosodic word in a phonological phrase gets the primary
stress. Secondary stress occurs in the remaining prosodic words or syllables.
There are utterances consisting of just one prosodic word. Primary stress was
attested in the penult, and secondary stress was attested in the remaining
syllables of the prosodic word. I have observed that some word stresses are
stronger than others within an utterance, but I have not figured out the
distribution of these stronger stresses. The phonological phrase is largely
coincidental with the clause as a syntactic unit when it occurs in fluent speech.
Yet, secondary stress does not occur in word construction. It occurs in a
phonological phrase only, which is the motivation for the proposal of the
phonological phrase of Paiwan here.
All content words may be stressed, but the rightmost word in a
phonological phrase gets the main stress. Only content words (CW) are eligible
to receive primary or secondary stress within a phonological phrasal domain,
while functional words (FW) such as ligatures or construction markers never
receive stress. Two nouns, for instances, can form a phonological phrase within
which the penultimate nucleus of the rightmost content word gets the primary
stress. Examples of phonological phrases (PPhs) are given in (69). Data presented
in this section were collected from Central Paiwan. Secondary stress was attested
in the penultimate syllable of the remaining content words in the phonological
phrases.
(69) a. [(qatsaqàtsa)CW a (riaríaj)CW]PPh
tall Lig thin
‘tall and thin’
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b. [(qatsqàtsa)CW akua (maríaj)CW]PPh
tall but thin
‘tall but thin’
c. [(riarìaj)CW a (qatsqátsa)CW]PPh
thin Lig tall
‘thin and tall’
d. [[(riarìaj)CW a (qatsqàtsa)CW]PPh a (timáu)CW]PPh
thin Lig tall Lig he
‘He is tall and thin.’
Shown in (69a-c), two adjectives form a phrase, and the second adjective
receives the primary stress, due to its position within the phrase. On the other
hand, the placement of the subject after the adjective phrase, as shown in (69d),
results in an embedded phonological phrase. The secondary stress occurs in
every content word of the embedded phonological phrase. The penult of the
rightmost content word in the outmost phonological phrase receives the primary
stress. Multiple or embedded phonological phrases do not change the
assignment of phrasal stress, as primary stress falls on the penultimate nucleus of
rightmost content word in the phonological phrases.
Penultimate dominant pattern in phrasal stress is also found in verb
phrases, as shown in (70).
(70) a. [(tmk)CW tua (váva )CW]PPh
drink Acc wine
‘drink wine’
b. [[(tmk)CW tua (vàva)CW]PPh ti káma ]PPh
drink Acc wine Nom father
‘Father drinks wine.’
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Examples in (71) show the assignment of stress in noun phrases and
multiple phrases. A brief pause indicated by parentheses shown in (71c)
separates longer sequences into two independent phonological phrases, and the
primary stress falls on the penultimate syllable of each phonological phrase.
(71) a. qatsqàtsa a riarìaj na vavájan
tall Lig thin Gen woman
‘a tall and thin woman’
b. qatsqàtsa a riarìaj a spac-a-pùuq a tsàvi na vavájan
tall Lig thin Lig forty Lig year Gen woman
‘a forty-year-old tall and thin woman’
c. caj-ákn [pause] ta qatsqatsa a riaríaj [pause] a spac-a-puuq a
like –1S.Nom Acc tall Lig thin Lig forty Lig
tsavi na vavájan [pause] akua ini ka caj timau tianuákn
year Gen woman but negation like he I
‘I like the forty-year-old tall and thin woman, but she doesn’t like me.’
d. nasawaq ka ku-áak [pause] ini ka na-d-m-ise
pretty my-child negation horrid-looking
‘I have a beautiful daughter, not an ugly one.
Inside the domain of a phonological phrase, the penult of the rightmost
content word becomes the most prominent position for the primary phrasal
stress. In the word na-d-m-ise ‘horrid-looking’, as shown in (71d), the
nucleus of the penult is a schwa; stress falls on the final syllable of the word.
Central Paiwan has a final stress subject to schwa penult. The right edge of the
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word is the most prominent position for stress when the penultimate nucleus is
also a schwa. It is apparent that phrasal stress patterns also follow the restrictions
and principles of word stress. A phonological phrase is the domain for phrasal
stress, and both main stress and secondary stress occur in a phonological phrase.
2.8 Orthography and Transcription
Orthography has become an issue since the political release in 1987. As we
have seen in section 2.3, consonantal phonemes in different Paiwan regions may
vary. Whether dialectal phonemes or morphophonemic alternations should be
included in the written system or transcription, and whether or not a united
orthography or an identical written system should be established have aroused
great attention among the Paiwan speakers. Thus far, there is no standard
orthography for the Paiwan language, and the majority of Paiwan speakers
under the age of fifty are literate in Chinese characters. Quite a large amount of
the churches within Paiwan villages have adopted a Romanized conventional
written system, but not a phonetic orthography, to popularize Bibles in Paiwan.
Earlier studies on Paiwan such as Ho (1977, 1978) and Ferrell (1982) have
adopted different conventional transcription systems, in which palatal and
retroflex series of phonemes are not clearly represented. Unclear transcription
and various phonemic representations may cause misinterpretation of later
fieldworkers. The controversial phonemes in Ho’s (1977, 1978) and Ferrell’s (1982)
transcription and International Phonetic Alphabets (IPA) are given in (72).
(72) The Comparison of Transcription Symbols
Ho (1977; 1978) Ferrell (1982) IPA
d d
l l
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c ts ts
tè tj c
dè dj
ĺ ł
ng
e
Shown in (72), phonemes /c/ and // are represented as /tj/ and /dj/ in
Ferrell’s (1982) dictionary, which may cause the confusion of CC cluster within
syllables. The symbol ‘c’ represents the phoneme /ts/ not only in Ho’s (1978)
study, but also in governmental teaching materials, and recent work such as
Chang’s (2000) and Tseng’s (2003) studies. Symbol ‘c’ may be considered as a
palatal stop by the other fieldworkers and international phoneticians, if it is not
specified. Although the regions Ho (1977) and Ferrell (1982) have worked are
different21, as they belong to the Central and Southern Paiwan domains in the
current study, the identical segment /ts/ was transcribed as /c/ by Ho (1977)
but as /ts/ by Ferrell (1982). The real pronunciation of the segment /ts/ is [ts],
not [c], in Northern, Central, and Southern Paiwan villages.
Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan of Taiwan, has published
a written system (2005) for the Paiwan aborigines, as shown in Table 2.10 and
Table 2.11. The symbols include the varieties attested in Northern, Central, and
Southern Paiwan, as well as the ones in Eastern Paiwan. It has been suggested
21 Kulalao dialect is the base for Ferrell’s (1982) dictionary. According to Ferrell (1982), Kulalao dialect is located in the geographically central location of the Paiwan territory, and it appears to preserve clearly certain phonemic distinctions which have been merged in some other dialect. Ho (1977) has worked on Butanglu dialect of Paiwan, which is located in the Southern Pingtung County, geographically southern part of the Paiwan territory.
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that the written system is conventional and will be adopted by all the Paiwan
aborigines in the near future.
Table 2.10: Consonants of the Paiwan Written System
Place and Manner Written Symbol (2005) IPA Bilabial Voiceless Stop p p Bilabial Voiced Stop b b Alveolar Voiceless Stop t t Alveolar Voiced Stop d d Retroflex Voiced Stop dr Í Palatal Voiceless Stop tj c Palatal Voiced Stop dj Ô Velar Voiceless Stop k k Velar Voiced Stop g g Uvular Voiceless Stop q q Glottal Voiceless Stop ’ / Alveolar Voiceless Affricate c ts Labiodental Voiced Fricative v v Alveolar Voiceless Fricative s s Alveolar Voiced Fricative z z Glottal Voiceless Fricative h h Bilabial Nasal m m Alveolar Nasal n n Velar Nasal ng N Alveolar Trill r r Retroflex Lateral l Ò Palatal Lateral lj ¥ Bilabial Semi-Vowel w w Palatal Semi-Vowel y j Total 24 24
Table 2.11: Vowels of the Paiwan Written System
Vowels Written Symbol IPA High Front Vowel i i High Back Vowel u u Central Vowel e
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Central Low Vowel a a Total 4 4
On the other hand, governmental teaching materials often mistake a
syllabic representation as a consonant, such as /tji/ and /si/. Hua and Zeitoun
(2005) have pointed out that there are few records of the Formosan languages,
and the few records that do exist will have to serve as the basis for further
research. Thus, it is important that fieldworkers pay attention to accurate
transcription, and accurate transcription is fundamental for any phonetic and
phonological studies. In this study, IPA symbols have been adopted for
transcription. The IPA symbols are used here and will be used throughout the
dissertation.
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CHAPTER THREE
PHONETIC VARIATION OF PAIWAN
This chapter provides a detailed phonetic description and empirical
evidence for the phonetic varieties of Paiwan. As we have noted that Northern,
Central and Southern Paiwan have different numbers of consonantal segments,
some distinctive features may be attested within a single marginal region but not
another. Some marginal regions simply cannot be classified into Northern,
Central or Southern Paiwan, and some sound patterns may spread randomly. Ho
(1978) has pointed out the difficulties in mapping the phonemic distribution of
/c/ and // in geographical terms, but at the same time, the factors of
synchronic phonological and phonetic varieties have been ignored in his study.
Ferrell (1982) have noted that for centuries the Paiwan aborigines have been in
contact with speakers of the other Austronesian languages such as Rukai and
Puyuma to the north. He also noted that although Paiwan dialect divisions
involve notably differences in realizations of the voiceless velar, uvular and
glottal stop, and of trill and retroflex, Paiwan speakers from all areas
communicate among themselves easily, despite regional variations in
pronunciation. Nevertheless, the situation described in Ferrell’s (1982) report has
been changing rapidly, especially in the innovative Paiwan villages. Nowadays
the contact in the Paiwan area is not only with the other Austronesian languages
but also with Chinese or Taiwanese dialects, and younger generations do not
speak the Paiwan language fluently and frequently. For those who are under the
age of fifty and speak the Paiwan language fluently cannot understand
occasionally the Paiwan speakers from the other villages. Not only the diverse
lexicon but also the pronunciation has caused the communication barrier among
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the Paiwan speakers. The various pronunciations have been found in some
recent intertribal families in which the couples are from different regions of the
Paiwan territory and currently living in the modern cities. The communication
language in these intertribal families is Mandarin, if the couples are not able to
communicate with each other in Paiwan. Sound change has occurred, and
younger Paiwan aborigines have been continuously producing phonetic varieties.
Given that some sound patterns are rather widely distributed while others are
rather restricted, and that some phonetic varieties in one region have
equivalences or correspondences in another, the description of phonetic variation
has become a necessity for a comprehensive field report of Paiwan.
Anderson (1985) has made clear that the phonetic representation is more
abstract than a physical record of an utterance. Keating (1985) also points out that
sound patterns can operate as abstract phonological rules, and she proposes
three candidates for inclusion in the set of phonetic universals—intrinsic vowel
duration 1 , extrinsic vowel duration 2 , and voicing time. The three assumed
phonetic universals are not automatic results of speech physiology. They are at
least in part determined by language-specific rules. In the case of voicing time,
for instance, none of the patterns found is universal, and the patterns are a key to
the relation among physical motivation, phonetic rules, and the grammar. Later
studies on sound patterns (Keating 1990; Pierrehumbert 1990; Cho & Ladefoged,
1999) have also revealed that there are language specific phonetic rules which
must be part of the grammar of each language. Accordingly, certain categorical
1 In most languages, low vowels such as [a] are longer than high vowels such as [i]. Though the similar pattern of intrinsic vowel durations is not a necessary one, general principles such as economy of effort and motor control must be more subtle than absolute mechanical constraints. Physical factors influence vowel duration, but they do not control it. For more discussion, see Keating (1985). pp.118-120. 2 General findings show that vowels are shorter before voiceless obstruents than before voiced obstruents or sonorants. Keating (1985) illustrates that a supposed phonetic universal is not in fact universally attested. Extrinsic vowel-duration patterning cannot be automatic or predictable.
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phonetic patterns associated with feature values and segmental structure in
Paiwan should be accounted for here. The categorical phonetic representation
could be the output of the phonology, or at least, part of the grammar of the
Paiwan language.
Section 3.1 provides the acoustic description of Paiwan stop segments.
Phonetic representations of Paiwan vowel segments are given in section 3.2.
Intrinsic and extrinsic vowel durations of Paiwan are examined and discussed in
section 3.3. An attempt is also made to figure out the phonetic correlates of
Paiwan stress. Finally, section 3.4 deals with the issues on synchronic phonetic
varieties and diachronic sound change. The data in the reconstruction of Proto-
Paiwan are drawn from previous literature (cf. Ho, 1978) and the fieldwork in the
current project.
3.1 Acoustic Description of Paiwan Stops
Paiwan has bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular stops. Voice Onset
time (VOT) measures were taken for the voiceless non-aspirated stops. The
purpose of the investigation of VOTs is to support the earlier phonemic
transcription and the variation among the dialects. The VOT of stops in word-
initial position was examined in an effort to see how VOT varies according to
place of articulation and the different dialects (Northern, Central and Southern
Paiwan). VOT has been known to vary with different place of articulation, and it
has been found that the further back the closure, the longer the VOT (Fischer-
JOrgensen 1954; Peterson & Lehiste, 1960), and that the more extended the
contact area, the longer the VOT (Stevens, Keyser & Kawasaki, 1986). The relative
size of the supra-glottal cavity behind the point of constriction has been
suggested to contribute to VOT differences (Maddieson 1997a). In general, stops
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with a more extended articulatory contact have a longer VOT. The differences of
VOT have become parameters for the distinction of voiceless stops in laboratories
and fields.
The Voice Onset Times (VOTs) of Paiwan stop consonants were
investigated by reference to the words in Table 3.1. Central and Southern Paiwan
data include all the forms in Table 3.1, whereas words with palatal and uvular
stops were not attested in Northern Paiwan. Among the data collected from
Northern Paiwan, only words same as the Central and Southern Paiwan forms
were measured, i.e., words with labial, alveolar and velar stops. Words were
recorded in isolation form, one repetition per item.
Table 3.1: Words for VOT investigation in Paiwan stop consonants3
CV Paiwan Gloss Paiwan Gloss Paiwan Gloss
pi piku ‘elbow’ pitsu ‘bamboo joint’ piqaj ‘tumor’
pu puk ‘tree bean’ puq ‘limestone’ pudk ‘navel’
pa padaj ‘rice plant’ pana ‘river’ paruk ‘betel kernel’
p pnau ‘to hit
(with stick)’
ptsqi ‘to
defecate’
pntq ‘to break’
ti tima ‘who’ tikaj ‘maggot’ tidiv ‘front tooth’
tu tutsu ‘now’ tutu ‘breast’ tuvu ‘plow’
ta tatsu ‘clothing
louse’
tataqan ‘grind-
stone’
takts ‘pygmy
deer’
t tqu ‘horn’ tar ‘light’ tnva ‘to answer’
3 The words in the table were collected in Central Piuma Paiwan. The segments /c/ and /q/ were not attested in Northern Paiwan, for /c/ and /q/ have become /t/ and // respectively in Northern Paiwan. The glottal stop // is usually invisible on the spectrographic displays, and it was therefore excluded from the examination.
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ci cigrav ‘larynx’ ciaauj ‘lizard’ cikuraj ‘pheasant’
cu curuvu ‘many
(people)’
cuvu ‘sprout’ cugu ‘tree name’
ca cakit ‘hunting knife’ cagu ‘rock’ caitiw ‘waterfall’
c cvus ‘sugarcane’ cvs ‘Zelkova
tree’
cvt ‘short
apron’
ki kinsa ‘cooked rice’ kina ‘mother’ kipkip ‘eyelashes’
ku kutsu ‘head louse’ kuku ‘doggy’ kuka ‘chicken’
ka kapaz ‘root’ kamuraw ‘pomelo’ kasiv ‘tree’
k ki ‘small’ kvi ‘scabies’ kmuav ‘to roast’
qi qias ‘moon’ qipu ‘earth’ qiri ‘fish type’
qu qua ‘rain’ quzu ‘tendril’ quav ‘color’
qa qaits ‘skin’ qavu ‘ashes’ qatia ‘salt’
q qtsap ‘chopsticks’ qrpus ‘cloud’ qtim ‘tree juice’
There is a general tendency for VOT to be longer when the closure for a
stop is articulated further back in the vocal tract (Fischer-JOrgensen 1954; Cho &
Ladefoged, 1999; Taff et al. 2001). If VOT is due to the distance between the open
end of the vocal tract and the source of the compression, the VOT for a velar stop
will tend to be longer than that for a bilabial stop, and the VOT for a uvular stop
will tend to be longer than that for a velar stop. In other words, the VOT for a
Paiwan uvular stop will be the longest among the voiceless stop: uvular > velar >
palatal > alveolar stop, given that the parameter of VOT is straightforward. Cho
and Ladefoged (1999), however, further point out that the factors influencing
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VOT varies from language to language. Although some differences in VOT may
be determined by aerodynamic factors, others simply reflect the behavior
associated with a particular language, as studies on VOT have revealed the
inconsistent variation between the stops (Cho & Ladefoged, 1999; Taff et al. 2001).
The recorded data were sampled at 20,000 Hz using the Macquirer
spectral analysis system. The interval between the onset of the release burst and
the first glottal pulse was measured on simultaneous waveform and
spectrographic displays. A total of 312 elicitation tokens (60 X 4 speakers, plus 36
X 2 speakers) from six Paiwan native speakers were measured. The data were
statistically analyzed by T-tests and two-factor ANOVAs.
The results are summarized in Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2. Northern Paiwan
tokens were separated from Central and Southern tokens in the figures, due to
the merger of voiceless stops in Northern Paiwan. The VOTs for labial stops tend
to be shorter than the other two stops in Northern Paiwan, as shown in Figure 3.1.
One-factor analyses of variance have revealed that the effect of place was
significant (F [2,69]=38.77, p<0.0001). In post hoc analyses, the labial stops were
distinct from alveolar and velar stops at p<0.0001, and there was significant VOT
difference (p<0.0001) between alveolar and velar stops. No significant differences
were found between the two speakers.
On the other hand, the VOTs for labial stops tend to be shorter than the
other four stops in Central and Southern Paiwan, as shown in Figure 3.2.
ANOVA analyses of variance of each dialect have revealed that the effect of place
was significant (Central Paiwan: F[4,115]=83.49, p<0.0001; Southern Paiwan:
F[4,115]=88.24, p<0.0001). In post hoc analyses, the labial stops were distinct from
alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular stops at p<0.0001, and there was significant
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VOT difference (p<0.0001) among alveolar, palatal and velar stops in Central and
Southern Paiwan.
Northern Paiwan Mean VOT
05
101520253035404550
p t k
mea
n V
OT
(ms)
ptk
Figure 3.1: Mean VOT of Northern Paiwan stops
The VOTs for palatal stops in Southern Paiwan are about 24% longer than
those in Central Paiwan. Palatal stops are distinct from uvular stops at p<0.0001
in Southern Paiwan. In Central Paiwan, there was no significant VOT difference
between palatal and uvular stops. Yet, velar stops were distinct from uvular
stops at p<0.0001 in both Central and Southern Paiwan. Among the Paiwan
dialects, VOTs for velar stops in Northern Paiwan are the shortest and those in
Southern Paiwan are the longest.
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Central and Southern Paiwan Mean VOTs
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Central Southern
mea
n V
OT
(ms) p
tckq
Figure 3.2: Mean VOT of Central and Southern Paiwan stops
The results agree with the general observation that stops with back
articulated closure such as /k/ and /q/ have longer VOTs than /p/ or /t/, but
no agreement was found in the realization of the uvular /q/. While significant
difference was found among the voiceless stops in Northern and Southern
Paiwan, no significant VOT difference was found between Central and Southern
Paiwan regions.
Cho and Ladefoged (1999) have investigated VOT in eighteen languages
and have reported that the differences in VOT between velars and uvulars vary
greatly. They suggest that although the volume of the cavity behind the
constriction is smaller for uvulars than for velars, the uvular stop might be
produced by a constriction with relatively shorter contact. The shorter contact
might result in a short VOT for uvulars in Paiwan, as shown in Figure 3.2.
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The results on VOT have revealed that alveolar and palatal voiceless stops
in Paiwan are not only two separate phonological phonemes but also with
independent phonetic representations. Stops [t] and [c] have different volume of
the capacity behind or in front of the point of constriction, and they may have
distinct movements of articulator and articulatory contact area. The voiceless
palatal stop [c], is further illustrated in Figure 3.3.
v u c Figure 3.3: Example spectrogram of stop c in the word vuc ‘squirrel’
Shown in Figure 3.3, no vowel-like formant was found aside the release
burst of the palatal stop. Ladefoged (2003) has shown that approximant /j/ has
a high second formant (F2) like the high front vowel /i/ on the spectrogram, and
that when F2 is the highest the tongue is in the most high front position. The
phonetic representation of an approximant does not occur in the spectrogram of
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[c], as shown in Figure 3.3. It is clear that the conventional transcription of the
voiceless palatal stop as /tj/ does not reflect the phonetic representation of [c].
The sample spectrogram supports the earlier description of the consonantal
phonemes, and they also provide evidence for the independent representation of
the voiceless palatal stop.
3.2 Phonetic Representations of Paiwan Vowel Segments
Paiwan has a four-vowel system: /i/, /u/, /a/and //. Vowel /i/ has
been described as a high front vowel, /u/ as a high back vowel, /a/ as a low
vowel, and // as a central schwa. Words given in Table 3.2 were elicited and
recorded by three female Paiwan speakers and three male Paiwan speakers. For
each vowel the data consisted of two examples of each vowel after a bilabial,
alveolar, velar and uvular stop. Each word was produced once in isolation.
Underlined syllables were extracted for formant measurements.
Table 3.2: Words exemplifying contrasts among Paiwan vowels
Bilabial Word-Initial Word-Medial4 or Final
pi piku ‘elbow’ uspit ‘thin’
pu puu ‘kidney’ tsmpu ‘to spin’
pa pai ‘entrance’ tsmapa ‘to roast’
p pnaisi ‘superstition’ qapdu ‘gall’
Alveolar Word-Initial Word-Medial or Final
ti tiu ‘chopping board’ maqati ‘permitted’
tu tutu ‘breast’ vatu ‘dog’
4 Some CV sequences do not occur word-finally, for instance, /p/, /t/, /k/ and /q/.
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ta tatsu ‘body louse’ ita ‘one’
t tk ‘to drink’ vnat ‘to wash (clothes)’
Velar Word-Initial Word-Medial or Final
ki kizi ‘spoon’ saviki ‘betel nut’
ku kua ‘foot’ iku ‘tail’
ka kapaz ‘root’ nka ‘to have not’
k kmai ‘to dig’ takts ‘mountain sheep’
Uvular5 Word-Initial Word-Medial or Final
qi qipu ‘dirt’ tsaqi ‘excrement’
qu quu ‘head’ iqu ‘throat’
qa qaa ‘enemy’ qaqa ‘crow’
q qtsiu ‘egg’ aq ‘cold (weather)’
The phonetic qualities of the Paiwan vowels were examined, based on the
measurements of the frequencies of the first, second and the third formant values.
The measurements were done using superimposed FFT and LPC spectra on
Macquirer and simultaneous spectrographic displays for reference. Recorded
data were transferred into the computer at a sampling rate of 22,000 Hz. The
formant values were determined from the LPC spectra with a 30 ms frame
calculation, and a pre-emphasis was applied to the signal prior to calculation,
with an additional 512-point FFT calculation check. The formant values were
determined from the LPC spectra, using FFT spectra as supplementary checks.
When the LPC measurement did not coincide with the FFT spectra, formant 5 Uvular stop /q/ was not attested in Northern Paiwan. Stop consonant /q/ has been replaced by the glottal stop // in Northern Paiwan.
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values were determined from the LPC. These measurements were also checked
against measures taken from a spectrogram. Vowel midpoints were taken for
formant measurements. A total of 192 tokens (32 X 6) were selected for the
principal formant measurements. For each token only the target syllable was
extracted, and the vowel midpoints were measured.
As we have noted that vowel // is much more restricted and affects the
assignment of stress, minimal sets were difficult to find. The words for
comparing vowels shown in Table 3.2 may not be the most suitable ones, but the
data selected here represent natural sounds of Paiwan. The mean formant values
of the main vowels are shown in Table 3.3.
Table 3.3: Mean formant frequencies for Paiwan male and female speakers
Gender Female Speakers Male Speakers
Vowel F1 F2 F3 F1 F2 F3
i 445 2398 3120 419 2185 2630
u 517 968 3030 470 809 2631
a 904 1593 2930 812 1235 2534
K 679 1723 2874 605 1630 2596
Formant plots of Paiwan female and male vowels are illustrated in Figure
3.4 and Figure 3.5 respectively. The plots shown in Figure 3.4 and Figure 3.5 were
drawn with UCLA JPlotFormants Version 1.4 software. The ellipses were drawn
with radii of two standard derivations along the axes of the first and the second
principal formants. Each vowel’s symbol was drawn at the mean of the vowel’s
formant plot in large font. The symbol ‘>’ in the figures indicates schwa //.
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Figure 3.4: Formant Plot for Female Paiwan Speakers
The distribution of the Paiwan vowels shown in the figures supports the
dispersion theory (Liljencrants and Lindblom, 1972) which predicts that
contrastive vowels are spaced with a sufficient contrast, such as /i/ and /u/.
There is greater variance for the schwa in F1 than F2, particularly for the male
speakers.
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Figure 3.5: Formant Plot for Male Paiwan Speakers
On the other hand, both of the mean F1 values in female and male Paiwan
vowel /i/ are lower than those in the vowel /u/, which indicates tongue
position for Paiwan vowel /i/ is higher than that for the vowel /u/. The figures
provide a phonetic description of the vowel qualities in Paiwan vowels. It shows
that in Paiwan the high back vowel u is not as high as i, which might be
perceived and interpreted as o. Formant plot for male Paiwan speakers indicates
that the low vowel /a/ is more likely to be a back vowel phoneme //. Given
that the articulation place for the low vowel in Paiwan tend to be back, the
feature [+back] should be added to the description of the low vowel phoneme.
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3.3 Stressed Vowels
Paiwan has a quantity-insensitive stress. Vowel length is not phonemic. Li
(1977) has pointed out that stress plays a part in the phonological change in some
Formosan languages, but the role of stress in Paiwan is not clear in his study. The
interaction between stress and vowel length in Austronesian languages have
been discussed in Wolff’s (1993) comparative study. He argues that in the
Philippines, which is the only area in which PAN root stress or length is
currently still retained in attested languages, the contrast consists of vowel length
in most cases, and the stress is predictable in terms of length. Yet, whether vowel
length is a phonetic realization of stress in Paiwan is unknown, and phonetic
cues to Paiwan stress are never examined in earlier studies.
Native speakers of Paiwan are not aware of their placement of stress until
their kids manipulating wrong stress in their speech. Phonetic realization of
Paiwan stress, if any, can further verify the existence of stress and the distinction
between stress and unstressed vowels. Given that the data presented in the
current study were collected from elicitation and that the natural patterns of the
Paiwan sounds should be preserved and retained, only minimal pairs for either
phonemic or syllabic contrast were selected for comparison here. The following
qualified words were found in the recorded voice data: kaka ‘siblings’, qaqa
‘crow’, va ‘lung’, vava ‘wine’, vat ‘nutlet’, vu ‘intensities’, vuvu ‘grandparents’,
vuc ‘squirrel’.
A total of 48 elicitation tokens (8 words X 2 speakers X 3 dialects) from six
Paiwan speakers were selected for the measurement of vowel length. For each
dialect (Northern, Central, Southern), tokens were recorded from one male and
one female speaker. The tokens were recorded in continuous elicitation, one
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repetition per item. A very short pause was inserted between items. None of the
word-final vowels were also phrase-final. Tokens recorded from Southern
Paiwan speakers were excluded for figure representation due to sudden
background noise. Only two words recorded from Southern Paiwan speakers
were clear enough for measurements: kaka ‘siblings’ and qaqa ‘crow’. Vowel
durations of the target vowels were measured from 300 Hz bandwidth
spectrograms, including the portion from the burst of the initial consonant to the
cessation of high frequency energy.
The comparison of vowel length in the same phonetic context is illustrated
in Figure 3.6, whereas the vowel durations of CV1 syllable, the stressed syllable,
are illustrated in Figure 3.7. Due to the limited number of the tokens, no
statistical test was conducted to show the significant difference between the
groups. Each bar in the figures represents the group mean.
Comparison of Vowel Length
050
100150200250300350400
ka1 ka2 qa1 qa2
Vow
el L
engt
h (m
s)
NorthernCentralSouthern
Figure 3.6: Comparison of Vowel Length in Paiwan
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Shown in Figure 3.7, vowel durations in the words ká1ka2 and qá1qa2, CV1
syllables in both words are stressed, but the vowels in stressed syllables are
shorter, compared with the unstressed final syllables CV2 in the same words. The
pattern is rather consistent in Northern, Central and Southern Paiwan. Note that
word-final vowels that were also phrase-final were excluded from the
measurement. The results indicate that the effect of final lengthening might be
imposed on the realization of the unstressed vowels. In the current informal
study, final syllables were longer in Paiwan, regardless of stressed or unstressed
syllables. Yet, more qualified and clear tokens recorded from more Paiwan
speakers are still needed to verify the preliminary observation. No solid
conclusion could be drawn before a formal statistical test was conducted.
Vowel Length of CV1
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
kaka qaqa vava vuvu va vu vat vuc
Vow
el L
engt
h (m
s)
NorthernCentral
Figure 3.7: Durations of Stressed Vowels in Northern and Central Paiwan
As for the effect of syllable structure on the vowel length, vowels in open
syllables tend to be longer than those in closed syllables. Shown in Figure 3.7, all
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the vowels in the examined CV1 are stressed, but they apparently have various
vowel durations. Vowel length in the closed syllables ‘vat’ and ‘vut’ is shorter
than that in the open syllables ‘va’ and ‘vu’ of Central Paiwan, and the open
syllable ‘va’ of Central Paiwan has the longest vowel length. Nevertheless, vowel
shortening in closed syllable was not found in the Northern Paiwan word pairs
va and vat, as shown in Figure 3.7. Vowel shortening associated with syllable
structure, named Closed Syllable Vowel Shortening (CSVS) by Maddieson (1985),
can be used as a cue to the syllabic constituency of a segment string. Many
Paiwan words end with a CVC syllable. The phonetic pattern of CSVS was
attested in Central Paiwan and thus provides some support for the internal
constituent of the syllable in Paiwan. On the other hand, internal vowel length
shown in Figure 3.7 indicates that low vowel [a] is not consistently longer than
high vowel [u] in the same phonetic context. The high vowel [u] in the open
syllable vu is longer than the low vowel [a] in the syllable va produced by
Northern Paiwan speakers.
Now we turn to the puzzle of the phonetic correlate of Paiwan stress.
When the quality of the preceding consonant segments and the effect of final-
vowel lengthening were controlled, as found in the word tatáqan ‘grindstone’,
duration, pitch, and intensity were measured. The word tatáqan ‘grindstone’ is
the only qualified trisyllabic word for the controlled factors in the recorded voice
data. Due to the recording environment in the field, some tokens were excluded
from the measurement due to background noise. Four tokens (one female
Northern Paiwan speakers, two female Central Paiwan speakers, and one male
Central Paiwan speakers) of the same word were selected for the measurements.
All the qualified tokens were recorded in elicitation, one repetition per item.
None of the word-final vowels were also phrase-final. Vowel durations of the
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target vowels were measured from 300 Hz bandwidth spectrograms, including
the burst of the initial consonant to the cessation of high frequency energy. The
fundamental frequency at the midpoint of each vowel was also measured. Again,
no formal statistical test was conducted here due to the limit number of the
tokens6. The results of the informal measurements are illustrated in Figure 3.8,
Figure 3.97, and Figure 3.10.
Vowel Length
0
50
100
150
200
ta ta qan
Dur
atio
n (m
sc) NF
CF1CF2CM
Figure 3.8: Vowel Length in the word tatáqan ‘grindstone’
NF=Northern Female; CF1=First Central Paiwan;
CF2=Second Central Female; CM=Central Male
Shown in Figure 3.8, the stressed vowels at the penultimate syllables are
longer than the unstressed vowels at the initial syllables. On the other hand,
stressed vowels have higher pitch than the unstressed initial vowels and the final 6 One may doubt if the differences are greater than would be expected by chance. However, it is hoped that authentic voice tokens recorded from four native speakers of Paiwan from different dialects may offer a preliminary account for the effect of word position on vowel length. Further studies are needed to verify the current preliminary account. 7 The trendline added in Figure 3.9 was based on the pitch track of the token produced by the first Central Female speaker (CF1). The gaps between the F0 pitch tracks due to the voiceless consonants shown in Figure 3.9 were discarded to make the F0 lines smooth.
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vowels, as shown in Figure 3.9. Penultimate syllables may have higher pitch than
the initial syllables due to stress effect, while final syllables may have longer
duration due to their position-in-word, as shown in Figure 3.8 and Figure 3.9. It
seems that stress lengthening correlates with higher pitch (f0), whereas final
lengthening of the unstressed vowels correlates with lower pitch.
Comparison of F0 Pitch Tracks
y = -6E-14x6 + 1E-10x5 - 6E-08x4 + 1E-05x3 + 0.0013x2 -0.2806x + 178.53
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Normalized Time (msc)
Pitc
h (H
z)
NFCF1CF2CM
ta tá qan
Figure 3.9: Pitch Tracks of the word tatáqan ‘grindstone’
On the other hand, intensity measured at vowel midpoints in the word
tatáqan ‘grindstone’ indicates that stressed vowels generally have greater
intensity than unstressed vowels in controlled phonetic contexts, as shown in
Figure 3.10. The final unstressed syllables tend to have minimal intensity
compared with the other syllables in the same word.
The examination on stressed vowels in Paiwan seems to indicate that
phonetic correlates of duration, pitch and intensity tend to match each other for
the prominences of stress. In other words, stressed vowels in Paiwan tend to
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have longer duration, higher pitch, and greater intensity than the initial
unstressed vowels. Yet, final lengthening may occur to mask the phonetic
correlate of vowel length.
Comparison of Intensity
8788899091929394
ta ta qan
Inte
sity
(dB)
NFCF1CF2CM
Figure 3.10: Intensity in the word tatáqan ‘grindstone’
Final lengthening is due to position-in-word, whereas higher pitch on the
penultimate syllable is due to stress effect. Stressed syllables in the examined
data always have higher pitch than unstressed syllables, and pitch tends to be a
robust cue for the production and perception of Paiwan stress. Stress lengthening
correlates with higher pitch, while final lengthening does not. The preliminary
observations have a bearing on the issue of the phonetic correlates of stress in
diverse languages. De Jong and Zawaydeh (1999) have pointed out that the
degree to which the prosodic effects will be manifested in a particular system is
part of the linguistic convention which needs to be specified for a particular
language. Prosodic systems are not stereotypical. In English, duration is a more
effective cue to stress than intensity, and pitch is an even more effective cue than
duration (Fry 1955, 1958). It has been disclosed that pitch accent languages such
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as Japanese use pitch as a correlate of stress to a greater extent than English
(Beckman 1986). Laver (1994) investigated different typological lexical stress and
has confirmed the dominant role of pitch in conveying stress patterns.
On the other hand, the final unstressed vowel with longer duration and
pitch drop provides some support for the Paiwan word as a phonological unit.
The boundary of a phonological word in elicitation is usually aligned with pitch
drop and longer vowel length.
The observation of vowel length as a phonetic correlate of stress in Paiwan
somehow corresponds to the claim made by Wolff (1993) that stress is
predictable in terms of length in many languages spoken in Philippines. The
evidence from Formosan Paiwan language indicates that vowel length might be
phonemic in Proto-Paiwan.
3.4 Synchronic Varieties and Diachronic Sound Change
3.4.1 Phonetic Varieties of Paiwan
A variety of sound change has been attested in earlier Paiwan studies
(Ho 1978; Ferrell 1982). Ferrell (1982) has reported the following phonetic
varieties in his field report, shown in (1)8.
(1) Caakavus Kuaau Cavuai
// /q/ /q/
adid qadid qadid ‘bitter’
uma quma quma ‘field’
/k/ /k/ /k/
ki ki ki ‘little’
8 The villages of Caakavus, Kuaau, and Cavuai are respectively located at northern, central, and southern Paiwan area.
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iku iku iku ‘tail’
// /k/ //
asiv kasiw asiw ‘tree’
vai vaik vai ‘to leave’
The dialectal varieties of /q/ and // were attested in the current study.
As we have seen in Chapter 2, Northern Paiwan has the phonemes /k/ and //
but does not have the phoneme /q/. The change of [k] ~ [] is phonetic, in which
case free variation occurs. Phonetic variation does not change the phonemic
inventory of Northern Paiwan or Southern Paiwan. On the other hand, the
change of *q > in Northern Paiwan is phonemic, in which case only the
phoneme // was attested. Phonemic change affects the arrangement of the
consonantal inventory in Northern Paiwan.
Although phonological inventory of each dialect has been constructed,
unpredictable phonetic variation was also attested in the informant’s speech.
Synchronic phonetic varieties found in the current study can be categorized into
palatal series, uvular and glottal stops, fricatives, and the trill. Varieties of
Paiwan palatal series are shown as follows.
(2) Variation of voiceless palatal stop among the dialects
Northern Central Southern GLOSS
tacit cakit ~ tacit cakit ‘knife (for hunting)’
tula cua cua ‘eel’
tagul tagu cagu ‘rock’
tara tara cara ‘ring’
tukuza cukuza cukuza ‘crutch’
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(3) Variation of voiced palatal stop among the dialects
Northern Central Southern GLOSS
dapal apa apa ‘thigh’
daay aay aay ‘phlegm’
dadila aiaq aiaq ‘lizard’
sudu suu ~ sudu suu ‘lover’
saad saa ~ saad saa ‘companion’
adaj aaj aay ‘spittle’
dalav ~ dalaw aav aaw ‘fast’
As we have seen that palatal stops were merged to alveolar stops in
Northern Paiwan, the sound patterns of *c > t and * > d attested in Northern
Paiwan are phonemic. On the other hand, phonetic varieties of alveolar stop
([c]~[t] and []~[d]) were also attested in Central Paiwan. While both c and t
sounds are acceptable in Central Paiwan, c sound is considered a more
conservative one. Yet, the varieties in Southern Paiwan were rather restricted.
This phenomenon indicates that the sound patterns in Southern Paiwan are more
conservative, whereas the sounds in Northern Paiwan are innovative. The
phonetic varieties in Central Paiwan are more active, probably due to the
frequent contact with the merger sound patterns in Northern Paiwan. Native
speakers of Central Paiwan have more flexibility than those of Southern Paiwan
in the production and perception of the varieties of palatal stop sounds.
Besides palatal stops, variants of palatal lateral were attested in Paiwan.
The variation of palatal lateral among the three dialects of Paiwan is given in (14).
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(4) Variation of palatal lateral among the dialects
Northern Central Southern GLOSS
tsavil tsavi tsavi ‘year’
lats ats ats ‘vegetable’
pali pai pai ‘door’
aal aa aa ‘month’
valualut vauaut vauaut ‘alive’
lal aq aq ‘cold (weather)’
Generally speaking, the sound occurs in Central and Southern Paiwan,
and the sound l occurs in Northern Paiwan. Yet, I have observed the variation
among the different age groups of the Paiwan speakers. The phonetic variety of
[] ~ [l] was also attested in the younger speaker’s speech in Central and
Southern Paiwan, whereas some elder speakers in Northern Paiwan were able to
produce the sound . In other words, the variety of the sound (* > l) is
acceptable among the younger speakers in Southern Paiwan. The sound might
be retained in some conservative villages in Northern Paiwan, while the sound l
has been attested in some innovative villages or produced by younger speakers
of Central and Southern Paiwan.
Now we turn to the question why the palatal sounds become alveolar
sounds but not vice versa. The phonological features, the quality of the sounds,
and the phonemes of the contact languages should be taken into consideration.
Given that both t and c are voiceless stops, the contact languages such as Rukai,
Japanese, Mandarin and Taiwanese do not have a palatal stop, and the chance for
the preservation of the sound c is relatively smaller. When the frequency of the
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palatal sounds in the languages the Paiwan aborigines use is low, the
preservation of the palatal sounds will be placed in jeopardy. The overlapping
sounds such as t, d, and l shared by Paiwan, Mandarin and Taiwanese will get
higher probability of preservation, while phonetic variation or sound change
more likely occurs in the sounds with unique features, such as c, and attested
in Paiwan only.
Another evidence for the preservation issue on the palatal sounds comes
from the varieties in the learning of the target sounds. The pronunciation of the c
sound was described as [t] or [t], two equivalences of Mandarin, in language
textbooks for elementary kids (cf. governmental teaching materials, 1993). When
the non-target sounds are learned or acquired, more varieties of the target sound
will appear in the future. Sound change has occurred in Northern Paiwan, and
the spreading of the merger sound is ongoing in Central Paiwan. The authentic
palatal sounds attested in Central and Southern Paiwan thus should be
preserved and circulated among the bilingual or multilingual younger speakers.
As we have seen in Chapter 2, the uvular stop was not attested in
Northern Paiwan. The sound change of *q > is phonemic in Northern Paiwan.
The glottal stop in Northern Paiwan was sometimes lost in speech flow,
especially in word-initial and word-final position. The varieties of Paiwan uvular
and glottal stops are illustrated as follows.
(5) Variation of uvular stop among the dialects
Northern Central Southern GLOSS
tsaa tsaaq tsaaq ‘thunder’
lit ~ lit itq itq ‘viscous liquid’
aa qaqa qaqa ‘crow’
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tsaluduan tsauuqan tsauuqan ‘finger’
us ~ us sq sq ‘tear’
ii ~ isi iiq iiq ‘urine’
ialud iqau iqau ‘to flow’
tataan tataqan tataqan ‘grind stone’
muta ~ muta mucaq mucaq ‘to vomit’
tiu ~ tsiu qtiu qtiu ‘egg’
mila ~ mila qmia qmia ‘to hide’
adid ~ adid qadid qadid ‘bitter’
(6) Variation of voiceless velar stop among the dialects
Northern Central Southern GLOSS
kaluaa kauaaq auaaq ‘spider web’
kisdam kisam isam ‘to borrow’
kitsauan kitsaquan itsaquan ‘to learn’
kikutsu kikutsu ikutsu ‘to delouse’
kiada kiada iada ‘to listen’
kitaz kitaz itaz ‘to lie’
kiumal kiuma iuma ‘to repeat’
kiila kiqia iqia ‘to hide’
Shown in (5) and (6), while the sound change of *q > is phonemic in
Northern Paiwan, the deletion of the glottal stop at word-initial or word-final
135
position in Northern Paiwan is a phonetic variation. The variety sound (k ~ )
attested in Southern Paiwan is also a phonetic variation.
On the other hand, palatalization occurs in Paiwan fricative and affricate
phonemes when followed by a high front vowel. In addition to the predictable
phonetic alternation, some other phonetic varieties were also found in Central
Paiwan. Older speakers in Central Paiwan tend to produce the palatalized
sounds more frequently than younger speakers in the same village. Note that the
following Central Paiwan data were collected from the older speakers in Piuma
Paiwan village9.
(7) Variation of affricate among the dialects
Northern Central Southern GLOSS
kmats kmat kmats ‘to bite’
ukuts ukut ukuts ‘mountain perilla’
tsautsau tautau tsautsau ‘human being’
matsa mata matsa ‘eye’
matsam matam matsam ‘spicy’
matsu matuq matsuq ‘deaf’
ravuts ravut ravuts ‘twitch grass (thin)’
The trill phoneme /r/ is realized as a velar voiced fricative in some
villages of Central and Southern Paiwan. The distribution of the variety is
restricted to the Central or Southern regions. Both of the sounds r and were
attested in Southern Paiwan, in different villages. While the speakers in one 9 The palatalization sounds presented here are the phonetic varieties. The sound [ts] was also attested in the same Central Paiwan village, and it has been treated as the phoneme.
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village preferred the sound r, the speakers in the other liked the sound better.
Varieties of the Paiwan trill are given as follows.
(8) Variation of trill among the dialects
Northern Central Southern GLOSS
ruvu ruvu ruvu~ uvu ‘nest’
ravuts ravuts ravuts~avuts ‘twitch grass’ (thin)
radaj raaj raaj ~ aaj ‘sharp’
ridarid rizariz~ izaiz rizariz ~ izaiz ‘saw’
kmarim kmarim kmarim ~ kmaim ‘to find’
It was reported in Ho’s (1978) study that the alveolar voiced retroflex
was produced as a trill r in a northeastern Paiwan tribe, and the trill r was
produced as a retroflex lateral in Tjavuali, an eastern tribe. It is apparent that
the eastern region of the Paiwan territory may have much more sound change or
phonetic varieties that have not been attested in the current project.
Thus far, four groups of phonetic varieties have been presented, i.e.,
variation of palatal, uvular/velar, affricate, and trill consonants among Northern,
Central and Southern Paiwan. Sound change of *q > , *c > t and * > d in
Northern Paiwan is phonemic, i.e., sound change affects the arrangement of the
phonemic inventory. Besides phonemic change, much more phonetic varieties
have been attested in the dialects of Paiwan.
3.4.2 Historical Sound Change
Given that phonetic and phonological varieties of Paiwan were attested in
earlier studies (Ho 1978; Ferrell 1982) and the current study, the phonemes of
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Proto-Paiwan have become crucial for the directionality of sound change. An
attempt has been made in Ho’s (1978) reconstruction of Proto-Paiwan to disclose
the phonemic and phonetic change in the varieties of Paiwan. In general, the
phonemes reconstructed in Ho’s (1978) study reflect the sound patterns
described here. The Proto-Paiwan consonantal segments reconstructed in his
study are illustrated in (9a), whereas the synchronic consonantal phonemes and
sound patterns of Northern, Central, and Southern Paiwan attested in the current
study are given in (9b).
(9a) Proto-Paiwan (9b) Northern Central Southern
*p p p p
*b b b b
*t t t t
*c c c
*d d d d
*
*
*k k k k
*g g g g
*q q q
*v v v v
*s s s s
*z z z z
*ts ts ts ts
*m m m m
*n n n n
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*
*r r r r
* l
*
*w w v w
v
*j j j j
Shown in (9a) and (9b), the sound change of merger occurs in Northern
Paiwan, and the palatal phonemes of Proto-Paiwan have been retained in Central
and Southern Paiwan. In fact, Paiwan is unique in its palatal sounds, which were
not attested in any other Formosan languages. The merger of palatal segments
has a bearing on the reconstruction of PAN. Synchronic phonetic varieties and
diachronic historical sound change have verified the existence of the palatal
phonemes. The comparison among the Paiwan tribes has reinforced the
understanding of the phonetic and phonological varieties spreading within the
Paiwan territory.
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CHAPTER FOUR
PROSODIC STRUCTURE OF PAIWAN
This chapter deals with the prosodic properties of the Paiwan language.
Prosody includes a number of speech characteristics traditionally considered
suprasegmental or separating from segment phonology. I have observed that
prosody plays an important role in the Paiwan language, in many aspects of
Paiwan phonology, such as phonological phrases, intonation, and beyond
sentence level. Some spatial concepts and the degree scale in Paiwan do not have
their morphological or semantic representation. Rather, they are embedded in
the organization of prosody. One may ask: what is the prosodic structure in a
language? More specifically, what are the prosodic constituents and prosodic
hierarchy of Paiwan? The chapter aims to answer these questions and draws a
clear picture on how prosody works in the speech of Paiwan.
The study of prosody in Austronesian languages is rather scanty.
Moreover, the term ‘accent’ has been used to describe various aspects of prosody.
Zorc (1993), for instance, classifies Paiwan as an Austronesian language with
accent falling regularly on the penult. Wolff’s (1993) work on PAN accent
patterns does not distinguish accent from stress, as he argues that in Proto-
Austronesian (PAN) the stress patterns fell on the penult of the root if it was long
(or accented) and on the final syllable of the root if the penult was short (or
unaccented). It is rather vague, under Wolff’s (1993) reconstruction, whether
accented syllables trigger stress and whether accented syllables are always long
in PAN. The work on accentual contrasts and the feature of PAN stress is still in
its infancy (cf. Wolff 1993). On the other hand, variation of the accent patterns of
Paiwan has been attested in recent empirical work (Chen 2004). Informants
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under the age of fifty tend to over-generalize specific prosodic pattern in their
speech and lose the prosodic features of the ancestral tone. Younger generations
of Paiwan are able to say a Paiwan lexical word, as many second language
learners can do, but the change of prosodic patterns in their speech could result
in the misunderstanding of communication or the loss of verbal arts. Chiang and
Chiang (2005) claim that Saisiyat, another Formosan language, is a pitch accent
language. They measure various prosodic parameters of syllable rhymes, such as
F0 height at onset, offset, peak and trough, pitch range, duration, and slope of
content words in Saisiyat, and they suggest that accent in Saisiyat should be
classified as pitch accent. Though they do not distinguish phonological accent
from phonetic accent, and no minimal pairs with distinctive features are found in
their lexical accent patterns, their account has been an innovative view for the
empirical analysis of Formosan prosody.
It is apparent that some aspects of prosody need to be clarified before we
move on. What are stress, tone, and accent? And how are they different from one
another? Gussenhoven (2004) points out that the notions ‘stress’, ‘tone’ and
‘accent’ all refer to suprasegmental aspects of the phonological structure, but
they are in fact rather different. A tone language, defined by Pike (1948), is a
language having lexically significant, contrastive, but relative pitch on each
syllable. The pitch of the word can change the meaning of the word in a tone
language (Yip 2002). While a tone language can allow a high tone to occur on
more than one syllable of a word, the basic principle in a stress language is that
only one syllable per word will receive primary stress (Garde 1968). If the
position of stress cannot be predicted from a word-boundary, one speaks of free
stress. Generally speaking, stress can be predicted on grammatical grounds. In a
stress language, every utterance has a rhythmic structure, and the rhythmic
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structure serves as an organizing framework for the utterance’s phonological and
phonetic realization (Hayes 1995). A stressed syllable is frequently characterized
by a pitch change, by greater duration and by greater intensity (Bolinger 1958;
Fry 1955, 1958). It has been disclosed that pitch accent languages such as
Japanese use pitch as a correlate of stress to a greater extent than English
(Beckman 1986). Most important perceptual cue of primary stress is changing
pitch (Bolinger 1958). As we have seen in Paiwan (§ 3.3), pitch has been claimed
to be a phonetic correlate of stress.
Accent, apart from stress and tone, has been widely studied but
sometimes vaguely used. In the prosodic structure of a language, accent syllables
are associated with a pitch accent. Functionally, pitch accents may be lexical, as
in Japanese or Swedish, or intonational, in which case they are frequently focus-
marking, as in English (cf. Gussenhoven 2004). The term ‘accent’ is used to mean
a place marker for the insertion of a tone or word melody (Hyman 1978;
Gussenhoven 1991a; van der Hulst 1999). ‘Accent’, like ‘word melody’, is an
analytical notion, and cannot be measured (Gussenhoven 2004). Beckman (1986)
argues that melodic accent (pitch accent) and dynamic accent (stress accent) are
actually two distinct accent types. In pitch accent languages such as Japanese,
pitch change is the only acoustic cue to accent; whereas in stress accent
languages such as English, stressed syllables are differentiated using pitch height,
duration, intensity, and vowel quality. The concepts of accent are different from
stress, which is typically an observable phenomenon, and different also from
tone, whose existence is measurable.
Three types of lexical-level prosodic properties have been proposal by
Remijsen (2003), lexical tones, lexical stress, and lexical pitch accent. He argues
that the function of lexical tone is to distinguish words from one another, while
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lexical stress and lexical pitch accent are categorized as varieties of lexical accent.
Lexical pitch accent consists of an independent and specific F0 pattern, whereas
lexical stress is realized using F0, duration, and intensity.
In the present chapter, word-level pitch accent, intonation, and prosody
beyond sentence are described and analyzed. Section 4.1 is a review of critical
prosody issues, a theoretical background for the construction of Paiwan prosodic
structure. Section 4.2 comprises several types of pitch accent in Paiwan,
imperative accent and pragmatic accent in different discourse contexts. Section
4.3 describes sentence–level prosody. Intonational phonology of Paiwan and the
phonetic implementation components are found here. Section 4.4 is the prosody
in Paiwan oral narrative and natural discourse. Finally, a discussion of prosody
in linguistic documentation is found in section 4.5.
4.1 Review of Prosody Issues
To better understand the prosodic structure of Paiwan, I wish to first
review some critical issues in prosodic categories and hierarchy, phonology-
syntax connection, and the interface between discourse and prosody. Relevant
and proper proposals in earlier studies will be adopted for the description and
the discussion of Paiwan prosody.
4.1.1 Prosodic Hierarchy
Prosodic structure is initially proposed by Selkirk (1978, 1980a), and
further developed by Nespor and Vogel (1986) and Hayes (1989a). The so-called
prosodic hierarchy is composed of the specific hierarchy of prosodic constituents
in the following: phonological word, phonology phrase, intonational phrase, and
utterance. Selkirk (1984) further points out that those domains must enter into a
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hierarchical relationship. Syntactic effects in phonology can be mediated by a
structure, for which the prosodic hierarchy appears to be an appropriate
representation.
Later, a number of studies have been made to verify the representation of
prosodic constituents and the prosodic hierarchy theory. Beckman and
Pierrehumbert (1988) have shown that boundary tones are ordered by size of
domain in the realization of English stress-accent and Japanese pitch accent.
The work of Nespor & Vogel (1986) on prosodic structure tends to support
the layered conception of derived domains in phonological representation.
Selkirk (1984) have suggested that the hierarchy for English includes at least the
following categories, as shown in (1):
(1) Prosodic Hierarchy of English (Selkirk 1984)
Intonational phrase (IP)
Phonological phrase (PhP)
Prosodic word (Wd)
Foot (Ft)
Syllable (Syl)
Selkirk (1984) points out that the prosodic word is not motivated as a domain of
phonological rules. Either the rhythmic disjuncture of syntactic timing or the
syntactic structure itself gives the appropriate representation of the prosodic
word. On the other hand, Hayes (1990) argues that the prosodic hierarchy cannot
serve as a complete theory of the phonological phenomena that are syntax-
dependent. The prosodic hierarchy as syntactic-motivated, correlated or syntax-
independent may vary from language to language, from one analysis to another.
On the other hand, Pierrehumbert (1980) proposes a theory of intonational
phonology and shows that the English intonational contour must be analyzed as
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a sequence of one or more pitch accents. Selkirk (1984) argues that the
assignment of intonational structure to a sentence is logically prior to the
assignment of phrase stress. The pitch accent units of the intonational contour are
aligned with the syllable of a sentence. The correspondence between
Pierrehumbert’s (1980) and Selkirk’s (1984) proposals is the verification of pitch
accent as a part of English intonational contour.
It is ascertained that in Prosodic Hierarchy Theory phrasal rules do not
refer directly to syntactic structure. Different languages may have different
definitions of clitics. As far as Paiwan is concerned, function words such as
ligatures, constructional markers, and unfooted prefixes may be considered as a
clitic group on the prosodic hierarchy. But is it necessary to distinguish words
from clitic groups on the prosodic hierarchy in Paiwan? Is it reasonable to
classify all the affixes into the category of clitics? We leave this question to later
proposal of prosodic hierarchy of Paiwan.
On the other hand, Natural Prosody (cf. Hurch 1996) presents a series of
preferences and corresponding processes. The origin of primary accentuations
may be lexical, morphological, or prosodic. Hurch (1996) argues that a concrete
accentuation is nothing more than the syntagmatic mapping of a given word
onto such pre-established patterns. It is apparent that prosodic layers or levels
become unnecessary in Natural Prosody.
Does the prosodic hierarchy exist in Paiwan? If yes, can it be verified?
Now let us begin with the prosodic constituents and categories in Paiwan. It has
been proposed in Chapter 2 that the alternation between /w/ and /v/ occurs
within a prosodic word, across a morpheme boundary but not across a word
boundary. The category of clitics may not be appropriate to cover both affixes
and construction markers. Construction markers are usually in connection with
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phonological phrases, whereas suffixes are cooperated into a prosodic word for
footing. Word boundaries provide evidence for the hierarchy of prosodic words
under phonological phrases.
The intonational level, observed in Chen’s (2004) preliminary report, is
characterized by pitch accent and the boundary tones. A high boundary tone
occurs at the end of yes/no question and exclamations, whereas a low boundary
tone occurs at the end of declaratives and WH-questions. Boundary tones in
Paiwan do provide evidence for the independent intonational level being distinct
from the phonological phrasal level. The temporary prosodic hierarchy of
Paiwan is insofar summarized in (2).
(2) Prosodic Hierarchy of Paiwan1 (provisional)
Intonational phrase (IP)
Phonological phrase (PhP)
Prosodic word (Wd)
Foot
Syllable (Syl)
4.1.2 Phonology-Syntax Connection
At the end of section 4.1.1, we have seen a distinction between
phonological phrases and intonation. Selkirk (1984) discusses the grammar of
intonation and clarifies the relation among rhythmic structure, intonational
structure, meaning, and focus. Selkirk (1984) argues that phrase stress plays no
role in determining where and how the tonal units of the intonational contour
1 A prosodic word consists of a stem plus a suffix sequence; it provides a domain for word stress. A phonological phrase provides a domain for secondary stress in Paiwan. An intonational phrase provides a domain for sentence-level prosody; distinctive boundary tones occur in an intonational phrase.
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are aligned with the syllables of a sentence. Semantic and pragmatic aspects of
intonation were cooperated in her studies of intonational meaning in English.
Paiwan does have a lexical focus system, as we have seen in Chapter 2.
Agent Focus is indicated by the infix -m-, Patient Focus as the suffix -n,
Locative Focus as the suffix –an, and instrumental Focus as the prefix si-
(§ 2.1.2.7). Focus structure in Paiwan, however, is not correlated with
intonational components, and neither does it affect the assignment of stress or
pitch accent at phrasal or intonational level. The major difference between
Paiwan and English focus structure is the correlation with pitch accent. Pitch
accent is not associated with focus markers in Paiwan. Pitch accent in Paiwan
intonation, on the other hand, may signify emphatic or other pragmatic functions,
which correlate with expressiveness component or informational structure, but
not a focus structure.
Selkirk (1984) makes more effort in the connection between syntax and
phonology. She suggests that the syntactic category labels for function words are
simply “invisible” to principles of the syntax-phonology mapping. On the other
hand, Nespor (1990) proposes the separation of prosodic and rhythmic
phonology. Prosodic structure mediates between syntax and the prosodic
component of postlexcial phonology, and the grid mediates between prosodic
phonology and the phonology of rhythm. The interface between syntax and
phonology is limited to prosodic phonology, whereas rhythmic phonology seems
to have nothing to do with syntax at all.
In utterance or natural discourse, much more pragmatic factors or
expressiveness components would take part in the surface representation of
prosody. Following Selkirk’s (1984, 1995) proposal, the prosodic layers of a
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sentence and the prosodic surface representation (cf. Gussenhoven 2004) in
Paiwan are proposed as follows.
(3) a. Paiwan Sentence: Typhoons destroyed the houses.
maŋcz a vai a kua nasa [ma-paak [a-zua tapav]NP]VP
come Lig wind Lig strong seemingly harm that house
‘Typhoons destroyed the houses’
b. Prosodic Structure of Paiwan: the verb phrase [ma-paak[a-zuatapav]NP]VP
is represented.
VP
V NP
(Segment, Syllable, Foot,)
[ma-paak] [a-zua] [tapav] Phonological Word
[harm [that house]] Phonological Phrase
[ ] Intonational Phrase
[ ] Utterance
c. Prosodic Surface Representation of Paiwan
υ Utterance
ι ι Intonational Phrase
φ φ Phonological Phrase
ω ω ω Phonological Word
F F F F Foot
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ Syllable
ma pa ak a zua ta pav Segmental Structure
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In the prosodic structure shown in (3b), the phonological word refers to
the domain where word stress can apply. A phonological phrase provides a
domain for secondary stress in Paiwan; phrasal stress occurs in a phonological
phrase. The intonational phrase is the domain where sentence-level distinctive
boundary tones occur. As we have seen in (3a), the verb phrase is at the right
edge of the sentence. Boundary tones or sentence-level prosodic prominences
apply to the syntactic verb phrase embedded in the prosodic intonational phrase.
The utterance is a string of phonological words, phonological phrases or maybe
intonational phrases. Pausing, breathing patterns or pitch movement can be
included in an utterance. In Paiwan, utterances can be any spontaneous speech, a
stretch of speech preceded or followed by pauses. No consistent prosodic
prominences were attested in utterances, and they were changing from one
speaker to another. Utterance prosody may overlap with an intonational phrase,
depending on the speech rate and the context of the speech. The prosodic
categories shown above represent different types of prosodic prominences. Yet,
the categories may overlap or collapse in utterance or natural discourse.
4.1.3 Prosody-Narrative Interface
It is true that the higher levels beyond sentences of prosody have been less
extensively studied than syllables, feet and words. The majority of phoneticians
or phonologists do not get into the prosody in discourse or narratives.
Wennerstrom (2001) is one of the few who investigates the relationship
between prosody and everyday speech. She examines the role of prosody in
discourse analysis, conversation, oral narratives and second-language discourse.
She characterizes the properties of prosody as follows: prosody is compositional,
cohesive, interactional, and expressive.
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Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg (1990) argue that each individual and
contour tone has a unique form as well as a distinctive meaning in the
information structure of the discourse. They suggest that there is an expansion
of the speaker’s pitch range to signal the beginning of a new topic, whereas the
degree of final lowering at the end of an utterance reflects its finality in the
discourse organization. Chafe (1994) on the other hand provides a psychological
account of the interplay between pitch accents and information structure
invoking principles of cognitive psychology. In his view, high-pitched items,
with more acoustic energy behind them, are physically easier for listeners to hear.
Schiffrin (1994) analyzes the illocutionary force of high-rising intonation
attached to grammatical statements. Speakers may use high-rising intonation in a
context in which they already have the information provided in the statement.
Wennerstrom (2001) summarizes intonation as one system, along with lexical
and grammatical systems, that speakers use to convey their intentions. Pragmatic
principles and background information are also assessed in determining the
illocutionary force of a speech act. Based on Grice’s (1975) notion of detachability
and cancelability, initonational meaning was argued to have a more stable,
conventional form-meaning correlation than what has been described as
conversational implicature.
In conversation analysis (CA), everyday talk is regarded as a highly
organized social achievement. Prosody is an important focus of the microanalysis
that has traditionally been characteristic of CA. In particular, conversation
analysts always pay attention to the timing of turn (turn-taking). The coding
system in Gumperz’s (1982) and Schiffrin’s (1987) analysis include symbols for
syllable and pause duration, tempo, volume, stress, and various intonational
phenomena, all recognized as central to the study of conversation.
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As far as narrative analysis is concerned, Labov (1972) published both a
grammar and phonology of Black English Vernacular, with a simple model of
components in informal stories as follows: abstract, orientation, complicating
actions, resolution, coda, and evaluation. Wennerstrom (2001) illustrates that
high-rising pitch boundaries are used in an orientation to a story as a teller
checked whether the listeners are following. Oral narratives are likely to include
performance features that express a storyteller’s values and emotions. Schegloff
(1998) discusses the treatment of prosody in interaction and points out a pitch
peak can project upcoming possible turn completion. He concludes in his study
that implementing the incorporation of prosody into the analysis of talk-in-
interaction faces seems to be a challenge.
Although the documentation and analysis of prosody in narratives or
discourse have been claimed to be a challenge or a time-consuming task, the
preservation of verbal arts in the indigenous languages cannot be accomplished
without the sketch of prosody. An attempt was made in this study for the
documentation of prosody in Paiwan oral narratives and discourse, which can be
found in section 4.4.
4.2 Word-Level Pitch Accent in Paiwan
Paiwan has different prosodic representations from the other languages
such as Mandarin and Taiwanese spoken in its geographically contiguous
districts. Vowels originally long in Japanese may be stressed in Paiwan, which
violates the general principles for stress assignment in the language. Japanese is a
non-stress pitch accent language, while stress pattern in Paiwan is predictable in
prosodic words. In Tokyo Japanese, it has been assumed that accent is not fixed
in two- and three-syllable nouns, though accent assignment usually falls to the
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final vowel of the stem (or root) of an accented adjective or verb (cf. Harahuchi,
1991). For instance, there are three classes of accented nouns: antepenultimate-
accented, penultimate-accented and final-accented. The smallest unit in Japanese
has a basic tonal pattern which may be schematized as ‘LH (L)’. The only
lexically distinctive property is the location of the fall from High to Low. The
syllable after whose first mora the fall occurs is accented, whereas no fall occurs
referred as unaccented.
Pitch accent in Paiwan occurs in words and sentences. Accent attested in
Paiwan words is word-level accent, and the words with accent include prosodic
words in imperatives or pragmatic contexts. Canonical stress rule or cyclic
phonological rules cannot account for the distribution of word-level pitch accent,
which will be analyzed in terms of phonetic implementation in this section.
There are a lot of factors that affect f0 timing (cf. Silverman and Pierrehumbert
1990; Prieto et al. 1995; Xu 1998, 2001; Myers 2003), and the factors controlled in
the investigation of the word-level accent here are the contexts and the position
in utterance, depending on the categories of the words. For instance, address
forms were collected from face-to-face discourse contexts.
In an isolated Paiwan prosodic word, stress is the only parameter to
determine the alignment of peak prominence. A prosodic word with penultimate
stress is illustrated in Figure 4.1. The token was recorded from a Central Paiwan
female speaker in isolation. Vertical dashed lines represent the timed f0
landmark with respect to syllables.
Shown in Figure 4.1, the word starts from the pitch around 200 Hz,
followed by a trough, presumably due to the voiced stop [d]. The pitch track line
then goes up to 238Hz, the f0 peak, in the second syllable. A falling track line
occurs in the third syllable, down to 151 Hz at the end. Word stress falls on the
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second syllable of the word, and the f0 peak occurs in the second syllable. It is
clear that word stress is realized as an f0 pitch peak. Note that the f0 peak does
not occur at the beginning of the stressed syllable dí. Rather, it occurs around 52
milliseconds later than the starting point of the syllable.
Figur
When a pros
accent may occur to
prosodic word. Two
and pragmatic accen
4.2.1 Imperative Acc
Imperative co
following a verb ste
On the other hand, a
an inclusive impe
imperative is indic
mu dí an f0 PEAK
e 4.1: Pitch track of the prosodic word mudian ‘face’
odic word is placed in different discourse contexts, pitch
change either the f0 timing or the peak alignment in the
major types of accent were investigated: imperative accent
t.
ent
nstruction in Paiwan is formed by a vocalic morpheme –u
m, when the theme is an exclusive imperative construction.
verb stem is followed by the vocalic morpheme –i to form
rative construction. In other words, Paiwan inclusive
ated by the vocalic morpheme –i, whereas exclusive
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imperative is indicated by the vocalic morpheme –u. Some examples of Paiwan
exclusive imperative construction are given in (4). In the following examples, ‘H’
indicates a high tone, a phonetic pitch peak in the prosodic word.
(4) Verb Stem Gloss Imperative Verb Gloss
a. kán ‘to eat’ kán-u ‘(You) Eat!’
H
b. kiqía ‘to hide oneself’ kiqía-u ‘(You) Hide!’
H
c. kím ‘to search for’ kím-u ‘(You) Look for!’
H
d. qívu ‘to speak’ qivu-u ‘(You) Say!’
H
e. súpu ‘number’ supu-u ‘(You) Count!’
H
Shown in (4a-c), imperative construction is marked by a low boundary
tone when the vocalic morpheme is added to the consonant-final stems or vocalic
stems ending with vowels other than u. The imperative words were recorded in
isolation. It is very likely that the end of the word is also the end of an
intonational phrase, which may result in the low boundary tone. The pitch peak
is aligned with the stressed syllable, i.e., the penultimate syllable of the
imperative words. A pitch track of the imperative word kán-u ‘(You) Eat!’ is
illustrated in Figure 4.2. The vertical dashed line represents the timed f0
landmark with respect to syllables.
Shown in Figure 4.2, the f0 peak occurs at the beginning of the stressed
syllable ká, and the high flat pitch line in the first syllable is followed by a falling
tone in the second syllable nu, also the final syllable of the imperative word.
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Fi
However, w
stems ending with
edge of the constru
(4d-e). Imperative
occurrence of f0 p
imperative exampl
the prosodic word
peak in the word o
added to the word
second syllable pu,
imperative form su
dashed line represe
ka nuf0 PEAK
gure 4.2: Pitch Track of the Word kánu ‘(You) Eat!’
hen the imperative vocalic morpheme is added to vocalic
the same vowel u, the pitch peak is aligned with the right
ction, i.e., the final syllable of the prosodic word, as shown in
forms in (4d-e) differ from non-imperative forms in the
eaks in the final syllable. The final syllables in the two
es are not stressed, and they just bear high tone. For instance,
súpu ‘number’ has a stress on the first syllable sú, and the f0
ccurs in the syllable sú. When the imperative morpheme –u is
to form supu-u ‘(You) Count!’, the f0 peak occurs in the
the final syllable of the imperative form. A pitch track of the
pu-u ‘(You) Count!’ is illustrated in Figure 4.3. The vertical
nts the timed f0 landmark with respect to syllables.
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Figure 4.3
Shown in Figu
final syllable of the i
begging of the second
The paradigm
data presented here
penultimate schwa w
peaks occur in the str
consonant-final stems
respectively in exclus
the pitch peak with th
the prosodic words,
the other hand, when
with the identical vo
su pu f0 PEAK
: Imperative pitch accent in the word supu ‘(You) Count!’
re 4.3, the f0 peak occurs in the second syllable pu, also the
mperative word. Note that the peak does not occur at the
syllable, around 85 milliseconds late.
of Paiwan imperative construction is illustrated in (5). The
were collected from Central Piuma Paiwan, in which
ill result in a final stress. In the imperative paradigm, pitch
essed syllables when the vocalic morpheme is added to the
or vocalic stems ending with the vowel other than u and i
ive and inclusive imperative construction. The alignment of
e stressed syllable indicates no extra pitch accent occurs in
and the pitch peak is the phonetic realization of stress. On
the imperative vocalic morpheme is added to stems ending
wel, pitch peaks always occur in the final syllable of the
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prosodic words. In the following examples, final pitch accent in imperative
construction is underlined with a sketch of pitch track.
(5) Exclusive Imperative Gloss Inclusive Imperative Gloss
a. pasám-u ‘(You) Borrow!’ pasám-i ‘(We) Borrow!’
b. pabrús-u ‘(You) Spurt!’ pabrús-i ‘(We) Spurt!’
c. kaáva-u ‘(You) Wait!’ kaáva-i ‘(We) Wait!’
d. aps-ú ‘(You) Blow!’ aps-í ‘(We) Blow!’
e. ukú-u ‘(You) Stoop!’ ukú-i ‘(We) Stoop!’
f. káts-u ‘(You) Bite! káts-i ‘(We) Bite!’
g. patsún-u ‘(You) Look!’ patsún-i ‘(We) Look!’
h. aáp-u ‘(You) Take!’ aáp-i ‘(We) Take!’
i. mucáq-u ‘(You)Vomit!’ mucáq-i ‘(We)Vomit!’
j. pavái-u ‘(You) Give!’ pavái-i ‘(We) Give!
H
k. qía-u ‘(You) Store!’ qía-i ‘(We) Store!’
l. snáv-u ‘(You) Wash dishes!’ snáv-i ‘(We) Wash dishes!
m. gatsá-u ‘(You) Stand up!’ gatsá-i ‘(We) Stand up!’
n. váik-u ‘(You) Go!’ váik-i ‘(We) Go!’
o. kái-u ‘(You) Dig!’ kái-i ‘(We) Dig!’
H
p. súp-u ‘(You) Suck!’ súp-i ‘(We) Suck!’
q. zurú-u ‘(You) Push!’ zurú-i ‘(We) Push!’
r. kivadáq-u ‘(You) Ask!’ kivadáq-i ‘(We) Ask!’
s. pasmaáv-u ‘(You) Tell’ pasmaáv-i ‘(We) Tell’
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t. umák-u ‘(You) Come in!’ umák-i ‘(We) Come in!’
v. snái-u ‘(You) Sing!’ snai-i ‘(We) Sing!’
H
w. suqv-ú ‘(You) Open!’ suqv-í ‘(We) Open!’
x. tam-ú ‘(You) Plant!’ tam-í ‘(We) Plant’
w. qv-ú ‘(You) Close!’ qv-í ‘(We) Close!’
z. qr-ú ‘(You) Lie down!’ qr-í ‘(We) Lie down!’
Imperative final accent results in the pitch peak not aligned with the
stressed syllable. Accent occurs at the final syllable to distinguish a verb stem
from an imperative verb, when the stem ends with the identical vowel with the
imperative vocalic morpheme. As we have seen in Chapter 2, vowel length in
Paiwan is not phonemic (§ 2.4). The imperative morpheme does not form a long
vowel with its preceding vowel in prosodic surface representations 2 . Some
imperatives ending with a high tone is due to the realization of stress, when the
vowels in the penultimate syllables are weak schwas.
Blust (2003) investigates the Thao language, another Formosan language,
and proposes vetative stress shift rule in which the imperative suffix is stressed in
vetative constructions when it occurs in consonant-final stems or vocalic stems
which do not produce a diphthong. Blust (2003) claims that vetative stress shift is
conditioned by a mixture syntactic and phonological consideration. However,
the connection between syntax and phonology in Thao is not clear in his
dictionary. The patterns of vetative stress shift in Thao are somewhat similar to
2 Informal measurements of vowel length have been done for the imperative data. Voice data from two Central Paiwan female speakers were examined. Imperative final vowels were not longer than the final vowels in non-imperative prosodic words in the same condition. Phonetic long vowels were not attested in Paiwan imperative construction.
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those of Paiwan imperative. A few examples drawn from Blust’s (2003)
dictionary are given as follows.
(6) a. /ata tu sakup-i/ [ata tu sakp-í] ‘Don’t catch it!’
b. /ata tu pasiz-i/ [ata tu pasi-í] ‘Don’t put it back together!’
c. /ata tu riri-i/ [ata tu reré] ‘Don’t seek revenge!’
The difference between Paiwan and Thao imperatives is the distribution
of ‘vetative stress shift’, termed by Blust (2003). In Thao, vetative stress shift rule
applies to all the imperative construction. The ‘vetative stress shift’, however,
does not occur in all the imperative constructions in Paiwan. Peak alignment
with the final syllable of a prosodic word occurs only in sequences of two
identical vowels across a morpheme boundary in Paiwan. When the imperative
vocalic morpheme follows a consonant-final stem or vocalic stems ending with
vowels other than u or i, the vocalic morpheme is integrated into a well-formed
prosodic word. Stress assignment occurs in the prosodic word.
Peak alignment with the final syllable of a prosodic word provides
another strong evidence for the proposal of word-level pitch accent. The
distinctiveness of pitch accent was attested in the production and perception of
Paiwan speech. Some accented words are phonemic, in which cases the
alignment of peak prominence with the final syllable of the word is obligatory.
Failure to implement prosodic rules may result in mispronunciation. Minimal
pairs are given in (7). Utterance with imperative pitch accent is underlined and in
bold. Again, ‘H’ indicates a high tone in the prosodic word.
(7) Paiwan Pitch Accent Gloss
a. paisu páisu ‘money’
H
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paisu (<paisu-u) paisu ‘(excl. imperative) Pestle!
H
b. katsu (<kats-u) kátsu ‘(excl. imperative) Bite!’
H
katsu (<katsu-u) katsu ‘(excl. imperative) Bring (it)!’
H
c. vni vni3 ‘to buy’
H
vni (vni-i) vni ‘(incl. imperative) buy!’
H
Shown in (7), the placement of imperative accent plays a crucial role in the
interpretation of the lexical forms. Exclusive imperative ‘pestle’, for instance,
differs from ‘money’ only in its pitch accent. In the word páisu ‘money’, the high
tone is aligned with the penultimate stressed syllable, whereas the imperative
high tone is aligned with the final syllable in the word paisu ‘(You) Pestle!’
Listeners must catch the pitch accent to distinguish imperative ‘bite’ kátsu from
imperative ‘bring’ katsu. And vni ‘to buy’ differs from vni ‘(We) Buy!’ only
in its pitch accent.
When the imperative verb is at the end of each turn in conversation or
natural discourse, another slight falling appears at the end of the pitch peak.
Imperative pitch accent in the word vni ‘(We) Buy!’ is illustrated in Figure 4.4.
3 The token was collected in Northern Paiwan villages. In Northern Paiwan, penultimate schwa bears stress.
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v n i PEAK
Figure 4.4: Imperative pitch accent in the utterance vni ‘(We) Buy!’
4.2.2 Pragmatic Accent
In this section, pragmatic functions of pitch accent in Paiwan is described
and analyzed. A sketch of accent in address forms is drawn from the prosody in
pronouns and proper names in discourse contexts. The emphatic accent
investigated here is mainly word-level accent in the contexts of narrative or
natural discourse.
4.2.2.1 Accent in Address Forms
Generally speaking, stress pattern is predictable in Paiwan pronouns, as
long as pronouns are treated as a well-formed prosodic word. However, it has
been observed that second person pronouns in Paiwan demonstrate different
patterns of peak prominence from the other categories of pronouns. The prosody
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in independent pronouns is shown in Table 4.1. ‘H’ indicates a high tone. All the
pronoun tokens were recorded in isolation. However, the second person
independent pronouns demonstrate different prosodic patterns from the other
independent pronouns in the same context.
Table 4.1: Paradigm of Pronouns
Free Pronoun Nominative Genitive Accusative
1sg tiakn (σσ) niakn (σσ) canuakn (σσσ )
2sg tisun (σ σ)
H
nisun (σ σ)
H
canusun (σ σ σ)
H
3sg timau (σσσ ) nimau (σσσ ) caimau (σσσ )
1pl (inclusive) ticn (σσ) nicn (σσ) canuicn (σσσ )
1pl (exclusive) tiamn (σσ) niamn (σσ) canuamn (σσσ )
2pl timun (σ σ)
H
nimun (σσ)
H
canumun (σσσ )
H
3pl tiamau (σσσ ) niamau (σσσ ) caiamau (σσσσ )
Shown in Table 4.1, Paiwan second person independent pronouns, either
singular or plural, have a pitch high accent falling on the final syllable, not the
stressed syllable. The pitch accent attested here has something to do with the
spatial concept of the Paiwan speakers. Second person pronouns were elicited as
calling persons face-to-face. The words were not used when the recipients were
not present. In other words, second person pronouns were treated as address
forms, to call a listener or addressee with short distance from the speakers.
Similar pitch accent was also attested in Paiwan proper names.
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Proper names and kinship terms of Central Piuma Paiwan with their
address forms and pragmatic accent are illustrated in (8). In the following
examples, shortening often occurs in juvenile forms.
(8) Paiwan Names Address Form Pitch Accent
a. Báis Bais Bais
b. Cbá Iba / a Iba
c. aváus avaus avaus
d. úzm uzm uzm
e. Zíbu Zibu Zibu
f. Múni Muni Muni
g. Íi (=) Ii (=) Ii
h. Kikikíau Iau Iau
i. Caúbak Ubak Ubak
j. úi Ui Ui
k. kína ina ‘mother’ ina
l. káma ama ‘father’ ama
High pitch accent in address forms falls to the final syllable of the proper
nouns or kinship terms, regardless of the quality of the vowel and the position of
the stressed syllable. The assignment of the pragmatic accent occurs in the
context where the face-to-face relationship between the speaker and the listener
has been established. Pragmatic pitch accent falls on the address forms in
prosodic words or words in pragmatic accentual phrases (APs). Accentual
phrases provide a domain for phrasal accent to occur. For instance, proper nouns
and kinship terms can form an address phrase within which phrasal pitch accent
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occurs. An accentual phrase comprises pitch accent words or contexts where
pitch accent can occur. A syllable associated with a pitch accent at the right edge
of a prosodic word is more prominent than any syllable that is not associated
with a pitch accent.
The high boundary tone at the right edge of the address forms is not an
imperative accent. As we have seen that imperative vocalic morphemes always
follow verb stems, and the pragmatic high pitch accent occurs at the right edge of
proper names or kinship terms in vocative context. The similarity between
imperative and the address accent is the high tone alignment with the final
syllable of a prosodic word. Both imperative and vocative contexts require the
presence of at least two persons, one speaker and one listener. The examples of
pragmatic accent in Paiwan address forms provide evidence for the important
role of prosody in face-to-face interaction. A high pitch accent in address forms
usually falls on the final syllable, the right edge of the prosodic word, regardless
of the word stress in the proper names.
4.2.2.2 Emphatic Degree Accent
Emphatic degree accent, usually indicated by a high pitch, was attested in
prosodic words in discourse contexts of Paiwan. Emphatic accentuation can be
found in many other languages. Laver (1994) argues that the function of
emphatic stress is to call the listener’s attention to a given syllable or word with
greater insistence. A paralinguistic emphatic accent is to signal the degree of
intensity judged by the speaker in a discussion context. Emphatic accent in
reduplication or affixation does not violate the principles of regular stress, as the
pitch peak in emphatic accent is aligned with the stressed syllable. Emphatic
accentuation in Paiwan is not only to signal the degree of intensity but also to
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change the dimension or quantity of lexical interpretation. In word formation,
reduplication of a stative verb stem denotes the meanings of plural (many) or
intensity. Some reduplication examples already shown in Chapter 2 (§ 2.1.2.8) are
repeated here.
(9) Stem Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. qatsa ‘big’ qatsa-qatsa ‘tall’
b. ki ‘small’ ki-ki ‘very small’
c. qadid ‘bitter-tasting’ qadi-adid ‘very bitter-tasting’
d. vuu ‘100-pace snake’ vuu-vuu ‘old; very old’
The stem vuu ‘snake’ originally signals the type of snake respected by
the Paiwan aborigines. The base stem also denotes the meaning of ‘old’.
Reduplication of the stem denotes the meaning of ‘old’ or ‘(more, much more,
quite, rather, extremely,) very old’, a degree intensifier or emphatic tune. There is
no degree adverb ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ in the Paiwan lexicon, though the Paiwan
aborigines do have the concept of degree scale. The most common way to
express the concept of ‘very’ is either to reduplicate stems or by means of
prosodic prominences. In other words, no semantic representation of degree
scale was found in the Paiwan grammar structure, but the meaningful process of
prosody denotes the degree scale. In the case of the reduplicated form vuuvuu
‘old’, for instance, the distinction between ‘old’ and ‘very old’ is the prosodic
representation. The contrast of pitch tracks in the pair vuuvuu ‘old’ and
vuuvuu ‘very old’ is shown in Figure 4.5.
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Pitch Track of the Emphatic Accent
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400Time (msec)F0 (Hz)
Old Old (Emphatic)
Figure 4.5: Pitch Contrast of vuuvuu ‘old’ and vuuvuu ‘very old’
Shown in Figure 4.5, vuuvuu ‘very old’ has longer duration and higher
F0 peak (over 300 Hz) than vuuvuu ‘old’. Emphatic accentuation differs from
the pitch accent in address forms in its implementation of vowel lengthening of
the stressed syllables and the peak alignment with the stressed syllable. Word-
level pitch accent in imperatives and address forms is realized as a high pitch
peak at the accented syllable, usually the final syllable, whereas both vowel
lengthening and high pitch peak of the stressed syllables were attested in the
phonetic realization of emphatic accentuation. Emphatic accent applies to any
well-formed prosodic word in the context of natural discourse.
To sum up, emphatic accentuation signals both degree of intensity and the
distinctiveness on the degree scale. Pitch peaks and vowel lengthening due to
emphatic accentuation occurs in the stressed syllables.
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4.3 Sentence-Level Prosody in Paiwan
In the section, sentence-level prosody of Paiwan is investigated. The
description of prosody is initiated from phrasal stress, prosody in phonological
phrases, and the distribution of intonational patterns. An attempt has been made
here to capture the prosodic dynamics in Paiwan intonation, such as gradient f0
realization, boundary tone, downstepped or upstepped pitch peak. The
transcription of the tone targets presented in this section mainly captures the
distinctive tone features. Minor or sporadic tonal realization may be ignored in
the transcription. The components of prosodic hierarchy are summarized at the
end of this section.
4.3.1 Derivation from Phrasal Stress to Sentential Prosody
As we have seen in Chapter 2, a phonological phrase provides a domain
for secondary stress in Paiwan (§ 2.7). A phonological phrase may consist of one
construction marker or ligature, which connects two independent words in
Paiwan. Word stress is usually retained in the phrasal construction. Ligatures or
construction markers refrain from receiving peak prominence in a phonological
phrase. The distribution of peak prominences in Paiwan noun phrases is
exemplified as follows. Data presented here were collected from Central Paiwan,
in which penultimate schwa will result in a final stress.
(10) Peak Prominence in Paiwan noun phrases
Noun Phrases Peak Prominence Gloss
a. matii a aak [[ma.tì.i] Na[á.ak]N]NP ‘one child’
b. manm a aak [[ma..nm]Na[á.ak]N]NP ‘six children’
c. maau a aak [[ma..à.u]Na[á.ak]N]NP ‘eight children’
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d. matii a suntiu [[ma.tì.i]Na[súntiu]N]NP ‘one village head’
e. ita a kava [[ì.ta]Na[ká.va]N]NP ‘one piece of clothing’
f. usa a kava4 [[ù.sa]Na[ká.va]N]NP ‘two pieces of clothing’
g. unm a kava5 [[ù.nm]Na[ká.va]N]NP ‘six pieces of clothing’
h. au a qaqa [[à.u]Na[qá.qa]N]NP ‘eight crows’
i. ita a vatu [[ì.ta]Na[vá.tu]N]NP ‘one dog’
j. unm a vatu [[ù.nm]Na[vá.tu]N]NP ‘six dog’
It is apparent from the examples of noun phrases that the rightmost
content word always receives the primary stress, whereas the secondary stress
occurs in other content word. Aside from the regular peak prominence in the
noun phrases, the data in (10) show the distinctive feature of [+HUMAN] in
Paiwan numeral-counting system, indicated by the prefix ma- at the left edge of
the numeral. Prosodic peak prominence is always retained in the content words.
On the other hand, in phrase-level or sentence-level discourse, more
variation of peak prominence was attested. Word stress and word-level accent
are usually aligned with specific positions in utterances. In the short phrase manu
udo ‘or noodles’, for instance, the conjunction word ma-nu ‘or; but; however’ is
not stressed. Phonetically, however, a pitch peak is aligned with the conjunction
word. The content word udo ‘noodles’, also a Japanese loan word, is either first
accented or second-accented. When the phrase is placed in an interrogative
context, the intonational peak prominence, realized as a high boundary tone, is
4 The complete form of this noun phrase is usa a tautau wan a kava ‘two piece of clothing’. Older speakers prefer the complete form, according to the informants. 5 Similarly, the complete form of the noun phrase is unm a tautau wan a kava ‘six pieces of clothing’.
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aligned with the right edge of the phrase. A pitch track of the short phrase manu
udo ‘or noodles’ is illustrated in Figure 4.6.
manu u do
PEAK High boundary
Figure 4.6: Pitch Track of the interrogative phrase manu udo ‘or noodles’
The prosodic domain of intonational phrases (IPs) and bracketing are created for
the different types of prosodic categories and contexts. An Intonational Phrase
(IP) consists of at least one prosodic word. The immediate constituents of an
intonational phrase must form a sense unit. The prosodic representation in the
Paiwan phrase manu udo ‘or noodles’ is illustrated in (11). Each prosodic word
in an interrogative context is aligned with a high tone at its right edge.
(11) Intonational Phrasing in Paiwan
manu udo
H H (downstepped)
[(…………)Prwd (………..…)Prwd]IP-interrogative
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Shown in Figure 4.6, the most significant peak prominence in the
interrogative phrase is aligned with the right edge of the conjunction word manu
‘or, but’, and a downstepped high tone is aligned with the right edge of content
word udo ‘noodles’, the boundary of the interrogative IP.
It is apparent that in an intonatonal phrase, stressed syllables or content
words not necessarily trigger a high tone or a phonetic pitch peak. Contexts or
types of intonational phrases may determine the occurrence and the alignment of
a high tone or pitch peak.
4.3.2 Descriptive Paiwan Intonation
In this section, a preliminary observation and description of Paiwan
intonation is presented. Consequential phonetic features, peak prominence, and
tonal shape are also noted for the sketch of intonational phrases. One prosodic
word may form an independent Paiwan sentence, especially in discourse and
conversation. However, many paralinguistic factors are also involved in the face-
to-face utterance or discourse. To better capture the contrastive and distinctive
prosodic properties of Paiwan intonational phrases, elicitation of minimal pairs
from the same speakers was adopted for the preliminary sketch.
The most distinctive intonational feature in Paiwan is the boundary tones
at the right edge of intonational phrases. Contrastive types of intonational
phrases are declarative/statements and yes/no questions. Declarative sentences
in Paiwan are usually aligned with a low boundary tone, whereas yes/no
questions are marked by a high boundary tone. Neither does a question marker
nor movement of auxiliaries form a yes/no question in Paiwan. Two identical
syntactic phrases are differentiated from each other at the intonational level, in
terms of intonational boundary tones. The first examples of contrast intonational
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phrases (IPs) are given in (12). In the examples, ‘L’ indicates a low tone, and ‘H’
indicates a high tone.
(12) Syntactic Stratum Prosodic Stratum
a. timau mamazian a’ (timau mamazian)IP-declarative
He is a chieftain. H L
b. timau mamazian b’ (timau mamazian)IP-y/n interrogative
Is he a chieftain? H H
The pitch contrast of the IPs in (12) is illustrated in Figure 4.7. Pitch tracks
of these two intonational phrases show the distinctive prosodic structures of
intonation. The declarative IP in (12a) has a low ending, while the yes/no
question in (12b) has a high ending. The declarative sentence has a distinct pitch
contour from the yes/no question in Paiwan. The pitch track of the declarative
intonation is represented as the solid line, whereas the pitch track of the yes/no
question intonation is represented as the dashed light line.
PEAK
High Yes/no
Low Declarative
timau mamazian
Figure 4.7: Pitch tracks of High and Low boundary tones in timau mamazian
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Shown in Figure 4.7, the f0 values and the pitch peaks are generally higher
in the yes/no question than in the declarative IP. It has been reported that f0
values are higher in questions than in statements (Hadding-Koch and Studert-
Kennedy 1964; Inkelas and Leben 1990; Myers 1996). The prosodic facts in
Paiwan seem to correspond to the general observations in the other languages.
Intonation in Paiwan overlays the prosodic implementations of word
stress, phrasal stress, and accent. In the word mamazían ‘chieftain’, for
instance, word stress falls on the penultimate syllable. When the well-formed
prosodic word is placed within the yes/no question IP domain, word stress is
overlaid by the high boundary tone at the right edge of the IP.
Tag questions in Paiwan are also aligned with a high boundary tone. One
interesting phenomenon attested in Paiwan tag questions is the alignment of the
high boundary tone at the right edge of every prosodic word within the IP
domain. On the other hand, negation in Paiwan does not show any peak
prominence or distinctive prosodic feature. The syntactic phrases of tag and
negation, and their prosodic properties are given in (13). The appearance of a rise
preceding the negation morpheme, as shown in (13b’), signals the presence of
more than one word in the IP.
(13) Syntactic Stratum Prosodic Stratum
a. timau mamazian ini a’ [(timau)W1(mamazian)W2(ini)W3]IP-TagQ
‘He is a chieftain, isn’t he?’ H H H
b. timau ini-ka mamazian b’[(timau)W1(ini-ka)W2(mamazian)W3]IP-Neg
‘He is not a chieftain’. H H L
A pitch track of the tag question timau mamazian ini ‘he is a chieftain,
isn’t he?’ is illustrated in Figure 4.8, and a pitch track of the negation intonation
timau ini-ka mamazian ‘he is not a chieftain’ is illustrated in Figure 4.9.
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PEAK
timau mamazian ini
Figure 4.8: Pitch Track of ‘He is a chieftain, isn’t he?’
PEAK
tima u ini ka mamazian
Figure 4.9: Pitch Track of ‘He is not a chieftain.’
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Shown in Figure 4.8, the right edge of every single prosodic word in the
Tag IP is aligned with a high tone. On the other hand, low boundary tone is the
prosodic feature of the negation intonation, as shown in Figure 4.9. The pitch
peak aligned with the right edge of the first prosodic word followed by the pause
signals the upcoming more words. Another high tone may occur in negation
words. Negation phrases usually have pitch contours aligned with a low
boundary tone at the right edge of the IPs.
In alternative questions connected by the conjunction word manu ‘or’,
high boundary tones were also attested. Again, spreading of the high boundary
tone occurs at the right edge of every prosodic word within the IP. Specifically,
the most significant pitch peak is aligned with the conjunction word manu ‘or’,
which is the major component of the interrogative construction. The example of
the syntactic phrase with its prosodic properties is given in (14), and the pitch
track of the syntactic phrase is illustrated in Figure 4.10.
(14) Syntactic Stratum
timau mamazaian manu suntiu
he chieftain or village head
‘Is he a chieftain or a village head?’
Prosodic Stratum
[(timau)W1(mamazaian)W2(manu)W3 (suntiu)W4]IP-interrogative
H H H H
PEAK (upstepped)
Shown in Figure 4.10, all the prosodic words in the alternative sentence
have a rising high boundary tone, which is the evidence for the tone spreading
account. All the prosodic words are affected by the interrogative high boundary
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tone, and the IP ends with a rising tone at its rightmost edge. The highest pitch
peak falls to the alternative conjunction manu ‘or’.
PEAK
H H H H timau mamazaian manu suntiu
Figure 4.10: Pitch Track of ‘Is he a chieftain or a village head?’
Several types of Paiwan IPs have been investigated so far: declarative,
yes/no question, tag question, negation, and alternative question. Now we turn
to the prosodic representations of WH-questions in Paiwan. Though there are
some WH-words in Paiwan such as ima ‘who’, nma ‘what’, inu ‘where/which’,
kmuda ‘how, why’, aku (a zua) ‘why’, there is no question marker except for one
particle borrowed from Taiwanese. Yes/no questions in Paiwan cannot be
accomplished without the distinctive prosodic properties. Based on the phonetic
pitch tracks of the IPs, the distinction between declaratives and yes/no questions
in Paiwan has been disclosed. Yes/no questions are aligned with a high
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boundary tone at the right edge of the IPs. Note that questions in Paiwan are
generally aligned with a rising tone, excluding WH-Questions. In WH-Questions,
the pitch peak is usually aligned with the WH-words. The WH-questions always
end with a low boundary tone. Examples are given in (15), and the WH-words in
the examples are underlined.
(15) Syntactic Stratum Prosodic Stratum
a. ma-inu-sun a’ [ma-(inu)WH-sun]IP-WHQ
‘Where are you going?’ H L
b. tima-sun b’ [(tima)WH-sun]IP-WHQ
‘Who are you?’ H L
c. a nma i-tsu c’ [a (nma)WH i-tsu]IP-WHQ
‘What is this? H L
d. a nma a-zua d’ [a (nma)WH a-zua]IP-WHQ
‘What is that?’ H L
e. tima sun adan e’ [(tima)WH sun adan]IP-WHQ
‘What is your name?’ H L
f. Syntactic Stratum
maka inu a caan a sma tia sutsiu
road where Lig walk Lig in direction of Lig village head
‘How to walk to the village head’s house?’
Prosodic Stratum
[maka (inu)WH a caan a sma ta i-sutsiu]IPpWHQ
H H H L
A pitch track of the sentence (15f) ‘how to walk to the village head’s
house’ is illustrated in Figure 4.11. No matter how many pitch peaks occur in the
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WH-question IP, the final syllable of the IP is aligned with a falling tone. One of
the peaks is aligned with the WH-word.
PEAK
maka inu a caan a sma tia su tsiu
Figure 4.11: Pitch Track of ‘How to walk to the village head’s house?’
Thus far, four types of Paiwan interrogative intonation have been
investigated: yes/no, tag question, alternative, and WH-questions. The prosodic
typology of the interrogative intonation in Paiwan is summarized in (16).
(16) a. Types of interrogative intonation with a high boundary tone:
(i) Yes/No: Is he a chieftain?
(ii) Tag: He is a chieftain, isn’t he?
(iii) Alternative: Is he a chieftain or village head?
b. Types of interrogative intonation with a low boundary tone:
WH-Questions: Where, When, What, Who, How, Why
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Distinctive features in minimal pairs of declarative and yes/no IPs were
also attested in embedded or complex sentential construction. Primary prosodic
envelope, prominence and modality of Paiwan intonation are usually retained in
longer IPs with slow tempo in elicitation. For instance, a high boundary tone at
the right edge of an IP is never associated with declarative sentences. A few more
contrastive pairs of declarative/Yes-No Question are illustrated in (17)-(19). In
these pairs, syntactic phrases are numbered as letters, whereas their prosodic
intonational phrases are marked with diacritics. For example, a’ is the prosodic
representation of the syntactic phrase a.
(17) Declarative/ Yes-No Question Contrast
a. azua timau a uqaaj vaik-aa qmaup tua vavaj
this he Lig man go-Past.AF hunt Lig boar
‘The man went hunt for boars.’
a’ [azua timau a uqaaj vaik-aa qmaupP tua vavaj]IP-declarative
L
b. azua timau a uqaaj vaik-aa qmaup tua vavaj
=na vaik-aa qmaup tua vavaj zaua timau a uqaaj
‘Did the man go hunt for boars?’
b’ [na vaik-aa qmaup tua vavaj zaua timau a uqaaj]IP-yes/no Q
H
(18) a. azua unm a puuq a tsavi a uqaaj vaik-aa qmaup
this six Lig ten Lig year Lig man go-Past.AF hunt
‘The sixty-year old man went for hunting.’
a’ [azua unm a puuq a tsavi a uqaaj vaik-aa qmaup]IP-declarative
H L
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b. azua unm a puuq a tsavi a uqaaj vaik-aa qmaup
this six Lig ten Lig year Lig man go-Past.AF hunt
‘Did the sixty-year old man go for hunting?’
b’ [azua unm a puuq a tsavi a uqaaj vaik-aa qmaup]IP-yes/no Q
H H H
(19) a. azua au a puuq a tsavi a vavajan uauaq-aan
this eight Lig ten Lig year Lig woman pretty-AF
‘The eighty-year old woman is very pretty.’
a’ [azua au a puuq a tsavi a vavajan uauaq-aan]IP-declarative
H L b. azua au a puuq a tsavi a vavajan uauaq-aan
this eight Lig ten Lig year Lig woman pretty-AF
‘Is the eighty-year old woman very pretty?’
b’ [azua au a puuq a tsavi a vavajan uauaq-aan]IP-yes/no Q
H H H
Prosody in conditional clauses is aligned with a low boundary tone at the
right edge of the IPs. The conditional word nu ‘if’ at the left edge of the IPs is
usually aligned with a high tone. Whenever a continuation rise appears sentence-
medially, with or without disjuncture, it usually signals the presence of more
than one prosodic word or clause in the sentence. A downstepped pitch peak, an
F0 peak that is lowered relative to a preceding high accent peak, was usually
attested in the second subjective clause in fast speech. Examples of conditional
clauses and the subjunctive phrases are given in (20). Again, a’ is the prosodic
representation of the syntactic phrase a.
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(20) a. nu vnai mata i Bais-akn
if wind Lig go Bais-I.AF
‘If typhoon comes, I will go to Bais’s place.’
a’ [(nu vnai)Clause1(mata i Bais-akn) Clause2]IP-Conditional
H H L
b. nu vnai ini-ka-kn a sma Akau
if wind Neg-I.AF Lig toward Pingtung
‘If typhoon comes, I will not go to Pingtung.’
b’ [(nu vnai) Clause1 (ini-ka-kn a sma Akau) Clause2]IP-Conditional
H H H L
(downstepped)
c. ka-patsun tua azua a vavajan a ukuukun (nua azua uqaaj)
AF-see Lig this Lig woman Lig hit (Lig this man)
vaik a pasmaav tua mamazaian
go Lig tell Lig chieftain
‘When you see a woman being hit (by a man), go tell the chieftain.’
c’ [(ka-patsun tua azua a vavajan a ukuukun) Clause1
H H
Disjuncture(vaik a pasmaav tua mamazaian) Clause2]IP-conditional
H H L
(downstepped)
As we have seen in (20c’), the syllable with final schwa nucleus in the
word ukuukun ‘hit’ is aligned with a pitch peak in the IP. The intonational
phrasal level must dominate the prosodic word level to accomplish the
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alignment of peak prominence in the IP. This provides some support for the
proposal of prosodic hierarchy and prosodic stratum in Paiwan.
To sum up, boundary tones are the major distinctive features in Paiwan
intonational phonology. Specific word categories, such as alternative conjunction
markers, tags, WH-question words, conditional clauses, and subjunctive moods
may trigger the alignment of peak prominence within the IP domain. Peak
prominence at the right edge of each IP classifies the intonational typology of
Paiwan. Word stress and phrasal prosodic properties are overlaid by the peak
prominences in the IPs. In natural speech, phonetic downstepped or upstepped
pitch peaks may occur in the prosodic representations of the IPs.
4.3.3 The Mapping between Syntax and Phonology in Paiwan
Does the boundary tone always correspond to the types of syntactic
phrases? Does the prosodic representation always reflect the grammatical
categories? Given that some syntactic phrases form an independent IP while
others do not, the gray area between different types of syntactic phrases and IPs
should be accounted for. In the section, an attempt was made to capture the
mapping between syntax and phonology in Paiwan, the combination of various
syntactic phrases within a global intonational phrase domain.
A set of declarative and negation IPs is given in (21). Again, a’ is the
prosodic representation of the syntactic phrase a.
(21) a. vaik a patsun tua quivarau
go see Lig rainbow
‘I went to see the rainbow.’
a’ [vaik a patsun tua quivarau]IP-declarative
H H L
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b. ini ka kn a patsun tua quivarau
=ikakn
Neg I.AF Lig see Lig rainbow
‘I did not see the rainbow.’
b’ [ini ka kn a patsun tua quivarau]IP-negation
H H L
c. patsun-akn tua quivarau, ika-kn a patsun tua qrpus
see-I.AF Lig rainbow Neg-I.AF Lig see Lig cloud
‘I saw the rainbow, not clouds.’
c’ [[patsun-akn tua quivarau]IP, ika-kn a patsun tua qrpus]IP
H H H L
The sentence in (21c) can be parsed into two independent intonational
phrases (IPs): ‘I saw the rainbow’ as the first IP, and ‘I did not see the cloud’ as
the second IP. When two IPs come together in utterances, the first IP is aligned
with a high tone at its right edge to signal the upcoming presence of more IPs,
whereas the second IP is aligned with a low tone at its right edge to signal the
end of the sentence. The negation morpheme ika is not aligned with any pitch
peak. It is embedded in the global event of the external IP.
Conditional sentences have the similar prosodic patterns. The fist IP with
conditional morpheme is aligned with a pitch peak at its right edge, whereas the
second IP is aligned with a low boundary tone at its right edge. A pair of
conditional sentences of Paiwan is shown in (22).
(22) a. nu qmua, kikn a patsun tua quivarau
if rain future-I.AF Lig see Lig rainbow
‘If it rains, I will see the rainbow.’
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a’ [[nu qmua]IP1, [ki-kn a patsun tua quivarau]IP2]IP
H H H L
b. nu ini-ka qmua, ki-kn a patsun tua qrpus
If Neg rain future-I.AF Lig see Lig cloud
‘If it does not rain, I will see clouds.’
b’ [[nu ini-ka qmua]IP1, [ki-kn a patsun tua qrpus]IP2]IP
H H H L
In some cases the clauses in the intonational construction are not equal, as
one of them is an independent sentence in the Paiwan grammar, while the others
may be supporting information relying on presupposition. Presupposition of
each syntactic phrase forms an independent intonational phrase, with additional
postscript in the information structure. Examples are given in (23) and (24).
(23) Presupposition: my pants are red
qui a kua nua ku-ku, ini-ka i-uauas
red Lig foot Lig I.Gen-pant Neg green
‘My pants are red, not green.’
Prosodic Representation:
[[qui a kua nua ku-ku]IP, ini-ka i-uauas]IP
H L H L
(24) Presupposition: the eighty-year old woman is pretty
azua au a puuq a tsavi a vavajan a uauaq, ini-ka na dmis
this eight Lig ten Lig year Lig woman Lig pretty Neg Lig ugly
‘The eighty-year old woman is pretty, not ugly.’
Prosodic Representation:
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[(azua au a puuq a tsavi a vavajan a uauaq)IP, ini-ka na dmis]IP
H H L H L
Shown in (23) and (24), the low boundary tone within each internal
independent IP is aligned with the right edge of the IP. When the extra or
supporting information structure is added to the right edge of an independent IP,
a new intonational phrase is formed. The supporting information structure, with
a high tone falling on the first negation word, is aligned with a low boundary
tone at its right edge. This type of presupposition intonation is rather different
from the prosodic representation of conditional clauses, as shown in (22), with
the first IP aligned with a high tone at its right edge.
Thus far, various prosodic categories have been investigated. Prosodic
structure in Paiwan comprises syllables, feet, prosodic words, phonological
phrases, accentual phrases, and intonational phrases. The constituents of
prosodic hierarchy in Paiwan are summarized in (25), a revision of the earlier
proposal in (2). Each category is of one level on the hierarchy. However,
overlapping between prosodic levels may occur in a wide diversity of syntactic
phrases and discourse contexts.
(25) Prosodic Hierarchy of Paiwan (revised)
Utterance (U)
Intonational Phrase (IP)
Accentual Phrase6 (AP)
Phonological Phrase (PhP)
Prosodic Word (Wd)
Foot (F)
Syllable (Syl)
6 An accentual phrase, as mentioned in section 4.2.2.1, provides a domain for phrasal accent to occur.
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Prosody hierarchy shown in (25) may collapse in utterances or natural
discourse, as we have seen the vague distinction between phrases (APs, PhPs)
and intonational phrases (IPs), and sometimes even between prosodic words
(Wds) and intonation phrases (IPs). Woodbury (1998) has found from an hour-
long tape of Cup’ig (Nunivak Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo) natural discourse
that pausing and final pitch cadences are local events but governed by linguistic
conventions in their use in context. Based on his findings, he argues that pausing
and final pitch cadences in Nunivak offer no positive support for the prosodic
hierarchy. In the current project, the discourse data collected in the Paiwan
villages did show pause variation among the speakers. It is apparent that the
prosodic hierarchy is based on some assumptions, while much more natural and
spontaneous peak prominence or pausing of speech may come to contradict the
clear-cut levels of the hierarchy.
4.4 Prosody in Paiwan Oral Narrative and Discourse
4.4.1 Prosody in Paiwan Oral Narrative
In this section, a preliminary description of the prosody in Paiwan oral
narrative is provided. Data presented here were drawn from the Academia
Sinica Formosan Language Archive7.
The topic of the oral narrative is “the establishment of the Kuskus Tribe”.
The old narrator was telling the interviewer how his tribe was established and
the migration and the settlement in his tribal history. In the overall 273 lines of
oral narrative, muri ‘have intention of doing’ occurs most frequently in the
Abstract, an introductory element. The word is usually aligned with a high tone 7 Academia Sinica Formosan Language Archive is available from the following website: http://formosan.sinica.edu.tw/formosan/ch/text_frame.asp
185
at its second syllable, followed by variable degree of pausing. The occurrence of
‘muri’ in story-telling narrative has a bearing on both information structure and
prosody. The intentional marker usually brings new information structure in the
speech flow, and the marker is associated with vowel lengthening and a rising
tone. A high pitch tone alignment with the right edge of the intentional marker,
as a function word, signals the upcoming new information structure. Peak
prominence, on the other hand, occurs most frequently in the complicating action
stanza. The wider pitch range between high and low tones occurs in the events of
the narrative’s plot. As far as speech tempo is concerned, slow tempo usually
occurs at the beginning of each stanza, and the tempo accelerates when a string
of information structure follows one another, usually in the middle of a stanza.
Fast tempo also triggers peak prominence in complicated actions, especially
when the peak prominence is associated with the narrator’s attitude and emotion.
Boundary tones are cues for pausing, lengthening, beginning and ending of an
information structure. It is noted that word stress is overlaid by phrasal accent
and intonation, and peak prominence alignment is more evaluative than
structural. Prosodic representations together with speech tempo and volume are
added to a few lines in the narrative, as illustrated in (26). In the following
examples, ‘>>’ denotes tempo accelerating, and ‘<<’ denotes fast slowing. High
volume is indicated by capital letters. Pausing is indicated by decimals or dots
inside the parentheses. The symbol ‘::’ indicates vowel lengthening.
(26) Prosodic Representations in Paiwan Narrative
002 muRI(.) i-kai-an(.), muri (.) s-m-an(0.0) mii-mii-an-an TA::(.2)-
H L H H
003 in-a-qati-an NA:: (.5) --hh nimica (asi-maza i kuskus (.). >>tu muri (.)
H L H
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004 s-in-an) caw-tsik-aa(.), tu muri (.) ka-ka-an-aa<<pac-MII NA::
L H L H H
005 ma-qati-qati a paru (0.0)pac-VU::VU::(.4) >>a muri (.) u-si-cuma,
L H H
muri (.) si-san- mii-mii-an.
H H L
‘I want to narrate our migration to the Kuskus tribe. I want to tell you
this story, our oral history, to pass it on to the next generation.’
Orientation
008 SA: itsu a (.) u-kina (.), masa asi-tau-vuvu a (0.0)
H L L H
<< VUU:-VUU: (.), zua a na-
H H
‘Regarding the geographical location of the old village (Saqetsenglj), it
was my ancestor who told me.
Complicated Action8
045 qua (.3), na-KUMUDA aqu (.) na::hh (.3) -ma-qauvu (0.0) aqu (0.0)
H H L H L
>>na-mara-rivu == tiamau==
046 nu==aja-icn?(.5) masa(0.0)aitsua(.) i-maza ta tapaw nutsua== maru (.)
H H L
047 ca-aak== ta maru (.) hh a-ai-an a (0.0) MA-ZA-ZAI-AN?
L L H
‘Well, why did the turmoil happen? What did they quarrel about? 8 In the following stanza, the symbol ‘= =’ indicates latched utterances with no gap. The arrow ‘ ’ is to draw attention to location of direct interest to discussion.
187
What happened din the small chieftain’s house was about a grow-up
pretty girl (Salrang).’
Peak prominence alignment and volume is evaluative, as observed in the
content words such as pacmii ‘preserve; pass on’ in line 004 and vuvu
‘grandchildren’ in line 005 of the Abstract stanza, and vuuvuu ‘ancestor; the
elder’ in line 008. As we have seen earlier (§ 4.3.2) that WH-Questions in
elicitation usually end with a low boundary tone, WH-interrogative mood,
however, is realized as a high boundary tone at the right edge of the intonatioal
phrase in the narrative context, as shown in line 045-047. This is the evidence for
the argument that peak prominence in the narrative context is often evaluative.
Structural prominence such as the low boundary tone in WH-Questions is
overlaid by the evaluative mood in the narrative. In other words, the levels of
prosodic hierarchy collapse in the Paiwan narrative.
4.4.2 Prosody in Paiwan Natural Discourse
The piece of the conversation presented here was drawn from Central
Paiwan. Two older Paiwan speakers were introducing themselves to me on my
fieldwork trips, as shown in (27). The letter ‘M’ indicates male speakers, while ‘F’
indicates the female speaker. The symbol ‘==’ indicates utterances with no gap.
(27) Introducing Conversation
005 M1: …hh ca-vai ca-vai akua (.)a-… cavai==cavai tima sun a(.) adan
H H H L
006 F: (0.0) ti==Baisa:kn
L H L
‘M: Em…our this lady (our this lady) but our this lady, what is your name?
F: My name is Bais.’
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007 F: ca-vai ca-vai (.) kama (.2) tima hun ?
H L H H L
008 M2: a- (.) ti vigu-akn(.), tina.
L H H
‘F: Our this gentleman, who are you?
M2: I am Vigu, Aunt9.’
Shown in (27), WH-Questions are aligned with a high boundary tone at
their left edge of the sentence in conversation, while answering the inquiry is
usually aligned with a low boundary tone at its left edge. The phenomenon is
consistent in both male’s and female’s speech. A speaker’s self-correction was
attested in line 005, indicated by the function word aku-a ‘but; however’, with a
high boundary tone at the right edge of the word to signal unfinished inquiry.
On the other hand, the high pitch accent in the final syllable of the address forms
was attested sentence-medially in line 007 (kama ‘father; respected male elder’)
and sentence-finally in line 008 (tina ‘aunt; respected female elder’). While word
stress is usually overlaid by higher phrasal accents and intonational boundary
tones, the high pitch accent in address forms is retained in the conversation. This
indicates that the pragmatic accent dealt with social relationship in Paiwan is
observably transparent in Paiwan speech, from words to conversation. Paiwan
speakers are very cautious about their mutual relationships in the tribal society.
4.5 Prosody in Linguistic Documentation
How do we preserve the speech prosody of an unknown language?
People may use digital recording facilities to collect the voice data in the field.
9 It is polite to address an older woman as “aunt” in the Paiwan tribal society, even if the older woman is not the sister of the addresser’s parents or grandparents.
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But how can the digital recording be presented in literal transcription? How can
the dynamics of prosody be associated with segmental representation? There is
no doubt that the prerequisite for documenting the prosody of a language is to
describe the observable prosodic patterns and to construct the prosodic structure
of that language.
This chapter has provided a description and analysis of different types of
Paiwan prosody. The prosodic structure of Paiwan may consist of syllable, foot,
prosodic word, phonological phrase, accentual phrase, intonational phrase, and
utterance. Stress, word-level accent, and sentence-level intonation boundary
tones were attested in the prosodic structure of Paiwan. Phonetic
implementations of high and low tones are important indices for word-level
pitch accent and the syntactic types of phrases and sentences of Paiwan.
However, much more spontaneous peak prominences or pausing of speech may
come to contradict the prosodic hierarchy.
Word-level accents conveying various types of semantic and pragmatic
information have been investigated. Much more information about the
traditional culture of Paiwan and the interaction between the speakers has been
revealed in narrative, discourse, and conversation. I believe prosody is a
primitive device in Paiwan speech. Prosody could be cohesive in Paiwan, as we
have seen a number of contrastive and distinctive prosodic features in
intonational phrases. One important finding in this chapter was that tone or
intonational variation was best modeled in terms of the f0 realization. Finally, it
is hoped that this chapter provides a preliminary framework for describing the
prosodic structure of the other Formosan languages or Austronesian languages.
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CHAPTER FIVE
PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF BUDAI RUKAI
This chapter deals with the major features of Budai Rukai phonology and
the segmental phonetics of Budai Rukai. Segmental phonemes of Budai Rukai
have been briefly introduced in earlier field reports (Li 1977a; Zeitoun 2000), but
a clear picture on segmental phonology, word stress, and prosodic formation is
scanty. Earlier studies (cf. Li 1977a; Ho 1983) focus on either reconstruction or the
internal relationships of Rukai. Much more attention has been drawn on whether
Rukai is closer to Tsouic or Paiwanic branch. As a result, a comprehensive
description of the sound patterns in the individual Rukai dialect is yet in need. Li
(1973) depicts the structure of Tanan Rukai, and Hsin (2000) describes some
aspects of Maga Rukai phonology. The two studies on different dialects of Rukai
have shown distinct phonological representations of Rukai. For instance, Tanan
Rukai does not have onset clusters, while onset clusters are important features in
Maga Rukai. This indicates distinctive features attested in one dialect could be
absent in another dialect of Rukai. Being capable of speaking one dialect of Rukai
does not guarantee the intelligibility of the other dialects of Rukai. Furthermore,
any claim that Rukai is closer to the Tsouic language or the Paiwanic language
based on the data of one single dialect of Rukai is premature. The description of
individual dialect of Rukai has become essential for both diachronic
reconstruction and the clarification of the internal relationships. Shelley (1978)
deals with some socio-linguistic aspects of the Budai dialect of Rukai, with an
analysis of the genetic relationship with the other Rukai dialects and Formosan
languages. However, phonological and phonetic details have been ignored in his
study. On the other hand, though phonemic inventory of Budai Rukai has been
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constructed in Li’s (1995) wordlist, phonetic representations and prosodic
structure have not been described. The chapter focuses on a detailed description
of distinctive phonemes, segmental phonology and phonetics, and word stress of
Budai Rukai, but other parameters of prosodic words that involve in the process
of morphology or morphophonemics are also found here.
Section 5.1 is a thumbnail sketch of Budai Rukai morphology. Section 5.2
provides the canonical syllable structure of Budai Rukai. Section 5.3 includes
consonant inventory of Budai Rukai. Vowel inventory is given in section 5.4.
Section 5.5 focuses upon segmental phonetics. Stress patterns are discussed in
section 5.6, in which parameters of stress in Budai Rukai are illustrated. Metrical
theory (Hayes 1995) will be adopted for the description of stress. Section 5.7 deals
with morphophonemics. Finally, the IPA transcription used for the current study
is addressed in section 5.8, with a brief summary of the other types of
transcription. The orthography issues are briefly discussed at the end.
While Rukai is a small linguistic group among the Formosan languages, it
includes six dialects: Tanan, Budai, Labuan, Maga, Tona, and Mantauran. Li
(1995) proposes two main dialect groups of Rukai: (1) Rukai proper—Budai,
Tanan and Labuan, and (2) the “Lower Three Villages”—Maga, Tona and
Mantauran. The former is located to the west and east, while the latter is located
to the north. Li (1973) states that the Tanan and Budai dialects of Rukai are fairly
close to each other, whereas the dialects of the Lower Three Villages are more
distantly related to the other two groups of Rukai. Based on the tribal
classification, Rukai can be divided into three groups: the Eastern Rukai group,
the Western Rukai group, and the Lower Village group. In addition, mutual
language contact and frequent intertribal marriage have been attested in the
newly settlements of the Western Rukai group, such as the villages in the
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Sandimen township, and the southern Sanhe Village in the Majia township,
where the Northern Paiwan aborigines are located. Due to the geographical
environments of their settlements, the Rukai aborigines have had close relations
with their adjacent Puyuma and Paiwan aborigines. The aborigines had become
related by marriage long before the Chinese people’s arrival. Frequent contact
with the other neighboring tribes such as Puyuma and Paiwan has influenced the
Rukai culture. However, the Rukai people who live at Wutai township in
Pingtung County are less influenced by the other tribes, and nowadays they still
preserve much of their traditional culture. The geographical distribution of the
Rukai language includes three different areas in three counties, with a total
population of 10,000 for all three groups: eastern Tanan dialect in Taitung
County, southern Budai dialect in Pingtung County, and the northern Lower
Three Villages in Kaohsiung County. The three subgroups differ not only
geographically but also culturally and linguistically. Budai is referred as Rukai
proper, including the villages of Vdai (Budai), Kutsapuan (Haocha), Adiri
(Village), Karammdsan (Chiamu) and the other newly settlements in
Pingtung County. Geographical names are given inside the parentheses for
reference. Li (1973) points out that the local communities where these dialects are
spoken identify themselves by the name given to their villages. Budai tribe is
geographically close to the Northern Paiwan tribes, and some of the newly
settlements are located within the Paiwan territory. Although the influence from
Paiwan is inevitable, Budai is treated as the most representative Rukai dialect in
Li (1995) wordlist. According to Li (1995), Budai is the most conservative in terms
of phonological change.
The investigation of the Budai language in the current study started from
the Budai Village in the Wutai township, where the entrance to the mountain
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area is rather restricted. Earlier field trips to the Northern Paiwan villages have
traced the settlements of the Budai Rukai people in the Sanhe Village, Majia
township. The Northern Paiwan speakers live in the northern and central Sanhe
Village, whereas the Budai Rukai speakers live in the southern Sanhe Village.
Most of the Budai speakers who live in the Sanhe Village speak or understand
the Paiwan language. The ancestors of the Budai speakers in the Sanhe Village
were mainly from Vdai (Budai), Kutsapuan (Haocha), and Karammdsan
(Chiamu). All of the Rukai languages spoken in these villages are classified into
the Budai dialect. To better assess the sound patterns of the Budai language, I
made field trips to Vdai (Budai), Kutsapuan (Haocha) and southern Sanhe
Village. The villages investigated in the current study are illustrated in Figure 5.1.
The number ‘1’ in the figure indicates Vdai (Budai), ‘2’ indicates Kutsapuan
(Haocha), and ‘3’ indicates Sanhe Village in the Majia township.
The informants are two male and three female Budai speakers, ages 50-70.
A few elicitation words were double-checked with one younger female speaker
in Budai. All of them speak very fluent Budai Rukai language.
Vdai (Budai) and Kutsapuan (Haocha) villages are older villages
among the Budai Rukai tribes in Pingtung County. Nearly 100% of the residents
in the communities are Budai Rukai aborigines. Budai Rukai is the primary
communication language in the tribe. The data collected in Vdai (Budai) and
Kutsapuan (Haocha) villages are the bases for this chapter.
Age difference within the same aboriginal community has been
mentioned in Li’s (1973) study. The younger generation speaks Mandarin in
public educational institutions and Taiwanese outside of the tribe. Li (1973) has
found a couple of features among the younger speakers of Tanan Rukai, such as
194
Northern Paiwan
23
Pingtung Coun
Figure 5.1: Budai Rukai tribes invest
different vowels from older ones, metathe
interdental fricatives. In the current stu
fricatives were also attested, as far as segm
been observed in my fieldwork that Bud
Sanhe village or have frequent contact with
the Paiwan stress patterns. The descriptio
found in Chapter 6.
5.1 Thumbnail Sketch of Budai Rukai Mo
Again, to better facilitate our unders
phonology, a thumbnail sketch of Buda
195
1
ty
igated in t
sis of diph
dy, phone
ents are
ai speaker
the Paiw
n of the c
rphology
tanding of
i Rukai m
Village Index 1. Budai 2. Haocha 3. Southern Sanhe
he current study
thongs, and the variants of
tic variants of interdental
concerned. Moreover, it has
s who live in the southern
an speakers tend to produce
ontact prosodic variation is
Budai Rukai phonetics and
orphology is offered here.
Budai Rukai morphemes can be classified into roots and affixes. Roots are
independent free morphemes that can be used independently as complete words
or utterances, while affixes are bound forms that must be used in combination
with other morphemes. Derivational morphemes in Budai Rukai include prefixes,
suffixes, infixes, circumfixes and multiple affixes. Derivation and reduplication
are productive processes in Budai Rukai. Words are independent forms
comprised of independent morphemes or the combination of free stems and
bound morphemes. Compounds and loans are restricted in Budai Rukai.
5.1.1 Independent Morphemes
Roots are the independent morphemes as affix targets. Roots in Budai
Rukai are generally in the shapes of VCV, CVCV, VCVCV and CVCVCV. Roots
longer than three syllables are rather restricted. The word minimality of Budai
Rukai is shown in (1).
(1) Word Minimality of Budai Rukai
Shapes Roots GLOSS
a. VCV ia ‘one’
b. CVCV sapa ‘mat’
c. VCVCV aatu ‘tree’
d. CVCVCV tuluu ‘leg’
Affixes may prefix, infix or suffix to a minimal independent word.
Prefixes attach to the left edge of roots, and suffixes attach to the right edge of
roots. Infixes attach to neither the right edge nor the left edge of roots, usually
right after the first consonant or vowel of roots. Circumfixes are the combination
of prefixes and suffixes; they attach to both right edges and left edges of roots.
Multiple prefixes and suffixes may attach to the right edge or the left edge of
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roots; infixes may be embedded in prefix sequences. The combination of prefixes,
infixes or suffixes may attach to roots to form independent words. Roots in
Budai Rukai carry the main components of meanings in a word. In the following
sections, fours types of independent morphemes are exemplified: primary nouns,
verb stems, stative verb stems as adjectives, and particles.
5.1.1.1 Primary Nouns
Primary nouns in Budai Rukai are simple morphemes that cannot be
segmented into simper components. Nouns in Budai Rukai can be used as verbs
by adding prefixes to their left edges, as shown in the right column of (2). In the
following verb examples, noun roots are in bold and underlined.
(2) Nouns Gloss Verbs Gloss
daan ‘house’ tu-a-daan ‘to build a house’
sapa ‘mat’ tu-a-sapa ‘to weave a mat’
lalak ‘child’ tu-a-lalak ‘to give birth’
ima ‘hand’ tau-ima ‘to wash hands’
5.1.1.2 Verb Stems
Verb stems generally cannot be used as independent complete words or
utterance without proper affixation. Some typical examples are given in (3), in
which the verbs in the right column are Agent Focus forms. Agent Focus verbs
are formed by adding the prefix morpheme u-a-, sometimes realized as wa- at
the left edges of the verb stems. In the following verbs, stems are underlined.
(3) Stems Gloss Verbs Gloss
kan ‘eat’ u-a-kan ‘to eat’
lupu ‘hunt’ u-a-lupu ‘to hunt’
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uulu ‘drink’ u-a-uulu ‘to drink’
lb ‘close’ u-a-lb ‘to close’
ituku ‘jump’ u-a-ituku ‘to jump’
5.1.1.3 Stative Verb Stems as Adjectives
The number of independent stative verb stems in Budai Rukai is rather
restricted. Many stative verbs are with the prefix ma-, which attaches to the left
edge of the stems. Stative verb stems serve as modifiers or adjectives, with or
without affixation. In the following examples, prefixes or suffixes are underlined.
(4) Stative Verbs Gloss Stative Verbs Gloss
tiki-an ‘to be small’ tsl ‘to be deaf’
adaili ‘to be far’ ad ‘to be near’
ta ‘to be raw’ k-an ‘to be short’
baav-an ‘to be new’ ma-palili ‘to be bitter’
ma-m ‘to be ripe’ ma-au ‘to be big’
5.1.1.4 Particles
Particles are generally interjections used independently in utterances.
Interjections are often in the forms of vowel sequences without consonantal onset.
Examples are given in (5).
(5) Particles Gloss Particles Gloss
iini ‘no; do not’ kaau ‘not have’
ai ‘ai (exclamation)’ n ‘all right’
ha ‘ha! (laughing sound)’ oo ‘oh! (exclamation)’
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5.1.2 Bound Forms
Bound forms in Budai Rukai are non-independent morphemes that must
be in combination with either independent roots or other non-independent
morphemes to form words.
5.1.2.1 Prefixes
Like Paiwan, prefixes in Budai Rukai are productive derivational
morphemes. The number of prefixes is the largest among the affixes. One single
prefix morpheme may have different grammatical functions and meanings.
Prefixing always occurs at the left edge of roots or stems, shown as follows:
PREFIX-[…]stem. Prefixes are generally in the shapes of V, CV, VCV, CVCV, and
CVCVCV. Prefixes longer than three syllables are restricted. While the number of
CV-roots is rather samll, many prefixes are in the form of CV-syllable. Some
examples of prefixes are illustrated in (6).
(6) Prefixes Functions Examples GLOSS
a- become a-kaa ‘to become fish’
why a-su ‘why you?’
ana- if ana-m-m ‘if think’
api- like; want api-kan ‘like to eat’
i- at; in i-a-bl ‘above’
ki- to gather; to collect ki-a-sabiki ‘to collect betel’
Dative Focus ki-a-laa ‘to hear’
to dig ki-urasi ‘to dig sweet potato’
ku- to remove ku-a-itsu ‘to peel’
Free Pronoun ku-su ‘you’
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Past ku-mauu ‘last night’
la- Plural la-bk ‘hogs’
lu- Future lu-iya ‘tomorrow’
ma- Stative Verb ma-upi ‘weak’
reciprocal ma-a-s ‘to meet’
two people ma-taagi ‘two friends’
mu- to remove mu-kipii ‘to take off clothing’
self-motion mu-a-tsii ‘to fall’
muasaka- ordinal muasaka-usa ‘second’
nai- have done nai-kla ‘to have come’
i- to move in certain i-a-palay ‘to fly’
direction i-a-vl-vl ‘to move’
-self i-a-pa-papatsai ‘to suicide’
u- to ride u-a-rigi ‘to ride’
pa- causative pa-patsai ‘to kill’
pau- by pau-dadavats ‘by walking’
sa- body parts sa-kubu-kubu ‘eyelash’
when sa-maka-kan ‘when finish eating’
si- verbal prefix si-a-ui ‘to receive’
to wear si-a-kipii ‘to wear clothing’
sini- from sini-vai ‘from Budai’
su- to clean su-a-urauru ‘to snore’
belong su-a-vai ‘Budaian’
ta- to feel ta-katsl ‘feel cold’
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taru- certain taru-a-au ‘rather many’
tu- to make tu-a-baava ‘to make wine’
tua- to wash tua-matsa ‘to wash face’
i- to release i-loro ‘to urinate’
u/w Agent Focus ua-tinono ‘to weave’
5.1.2.2 Suffixes
Diverse grammatical functions of suffixes have been attested in Budai
Rukai. One single suffix morpheme may have different grammatical functions
and meanings. Suffixes are in the shapes of V, CV and VCV. Suffixing always
occurs at the right edge of roots or stems, shown as follows: […]stem-SUFFIX.
Some suffixed morphemes are illustrated in (7).
(7) Suffixes Functions Examples GLOSS
-a imperative kan-a ‘eat!’
Accusative Case nai-a ‘us’
-ana still; yet kaua-ana ‘have not yet’
-an nominalizer kan-an ‘food’
-a completive u-a-l-a ‘have seen’
close to ad-a ‘to get close to’
5.1.2.3 Infixes
Infixes attested in Budai Rukai are all bound morphemes that attach to
stems or words. The number of infixes is relatively less. The occurrence of infixes
is either at the left edge of stems or embedded in the sequences of prefixes,
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usually right after the first consonant or vowel of the prefixes. Some of the infixes
are allomorphs. Examples are given in (8).
(8) Infixes Functions Examples GLOSS
-a- past tense; non-future u-a-tubi ‘to be crying; cried’
realis u-a-apts ‘to be sleeping; slept’
-in- Goal subject; Past time t-in-u-baava ‘wine that was made’
5.1.2.4 Circumfixes
Circumfixing occurs at the left edge and the right edge of roots or stems.
Circumfixes are generally derivational morphemes that are productive and
usually attached to roots or stems to form independent words in Budai Rukai. A
wide diversity of derivational morphemes was attested. Circumfixes can produce
limitless derivation processes in Budai Rukai. A few examples of derivational
circumfixed morphemes are illustrated in (9).
(9) Morphemes Functions Examples GLOSS
a- + -an future state a-lb-an ‘to be closed’
nominalizer a-aga-an ‘to be cooked’
ka-+-an real or genuine ka-baava-an ‘real wine’
ka-lua-an ‘real cow’
kala-+ -an season kala-ktsl-an ‘winter’
sa-+-an instrument sa-svr-an ‘wind’
sa-ukur-an ‘latch’
sanu-+-an left-over sanu-kan-an ‘food left over’
sanu-+-l frequency sanu-ima-l ‘five times’
ta-+-an time; location ta-ap-apts-an ‘room; time for sleep’
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ta-pia-pia-pia-an ‘often’
5.1.2.5 Multiple Affixes
In addition to circumfixes, a few multiple affixes comprised dual or plural
affixes are productive as well. They can attach to stems as multiple prefixes,
multiple circumfixes, or the combination of prefixes, infixes, suffixes and
circumfixes. Some typical examples are shown in (10).
(10) Morphemes Functions Examples GLOSS
la-ma- plural marker la-ma-lalak ‘children’
i-tara- have to; must i-tara-kan ‘must eat’
sa-ka- household sa-ka-usa ‘spouse’
sa-ka-u-… -an the whole sa-ka-u-daan-an ‘whole family’
sa-ka-si-…l-an the…generation sa-ka-si-tuu-l-an ‘the 3rd generation’
ta-ra- for a period of time ta-ra-tsaili ‘for a year’
be good at ta-ra-alupu ‘hunter’
t-in-u…-an personal relation t-in-u-agi-agi-an ‘junior’
5.1.2.6 Construction Markers
Construction markers in Budai Rukai are usually syntactic components in
either noun phrases or verb phrases, and sentences, similar to agreement
markers. Case makers usually occur before nouns. Nouns can be divided into
[+animate] and [-animate], whereas visible and invisible nouns have different
case markers. The case markers in Budai Rukai are illustrated in Table 5.1.
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Table 5.1: Case Markers of Budai Rukai
Case Markers Visible Invisible
Nominative ka ku
[+Animate] ki ki Oblique
[-Animate] ka ku
Case markers or construction markers are also called ligatures1 thereafter.
Contrastive examples of case markers are given in (11) and (12).
(11) a. wa-apts-a ka ulai
sleep-past Nom infant
‘The infant (this visible infant) slept.’
b. wa-apts-a ku ulai
sleep-past Nom infant
‘The infant (that, invisible infant) slept.’
(12) a. wa-kan-a ka/ku kaka ka blbl
eat-past Nom elder brother Obl banana
‘Elder brother ate the banana (visible, [-animate]).’
b. wa-kan-kan ka/ku kaka ku blbl
eat Nom elder brother Obl banana
‘Elder brother often eats the banana (invisible, [-animate]).’
c. wa-papatsai ka/ku kaka ki babui
kill Nom elder brother Obl boar
1 The term ‘case marker’ is called ‘construction marker’ by Ferrell (1979) and is called ‘relation marker’ by Tsuchida (1976). There are various case marker systems in Formosan languages. Linguists who have been working in the field such as Paul Li and Elizabeth Zeitoun used the conventional term ‘ligature’ to refer to different syntactic uses of construction markers. As ligature, it links two nouns, verbs or phrases. There is not always a clear distinction between nominative case markers and ligatures. For more discussion on case markers and ligatures, see Li (1996a, 1996b, 1997, 2004).
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‘Elder brother kills the boar (visible or invisible [+animate]).’
5.1.2.7 Pronouns
Pronouns in Budai Rukai are either bound morphemes or independent
personal pronouns. Some bound morphemes behave like construction markers,
whereas independent personal pronouns are the combinations of both
construction markers and bound morphemes. A complete paradigm of Budai
Rukai personal pronouns is illustrated in (13).
(13) Nominative Genitive Accusative
1st person singular kunaku, -ku -li naku-an
-(n)aku, -nau
1st person plural (incl.) kuta, -ta -ta, -ita, -mita mita-an
1st person plural (excl.) kunai, -nai -nai nai-an
2nd person singular kusu, -su -su musu-an
2nd person plural kunumi, -numi numi-an
-numi, -nu
3rd person singular (visible) kuini -ini ini-an
3rd person singular (invisible) kuia — —
3rd person plural (visible) kuini -ini ini-an
3rd person plural (invisible) kuia — —
The personal markers never occur in isolation, as most of the markers are
dependent on other noun or verb morphemes. Furthermore, nothing can
intervene between the personal markers and the noun or verb morphemes,
except the completive marker -a, which is also a suffix. For instance, nothing
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occurs between lalak ‘kid’ and –su ‘your’ in the example lalak-su ‘your kid’,
but the suffix morpheme -a occurs between the verbs and the pronouns in the
following examples: wa-uulu-a-ku ‘I drunk’, maka-wa-kan-a-su ‘you ate’.
5.1.2.8 Focus
Unlike Paiwan and most of the Formosan languages, Budai Rukai does
not present particular Agent Focus, Patient Focus, Locative or Instrumental
Focus. Instead, only active and passive markers have been attested. The maker
morphemes for active and passive verbs are illustrated in (14).
(14) Verbal Markers
a. Active /Agent Focus (AF): prefix u-/w-
b. Passive/ Patient Focus (PF): prefix ki-
The minimal pairs for focus system are given in (15) and (16).
(15) a. u-a-kan-aku ku blbl
eat.AF-1sgNom Obl banana
‘I eat the banana.’
b. ki-a-kan ku blbl
eat.PF Nom banana
‘The banana is eaten.’
(16) a. u-a-uulu-aku ku baava
drink.AF-1sgNom Obl wine
‘I drink the wine’
b. ki-a-uulu ku baava
drink. PF Nom wine
‘The wine was drunk.’
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5.1.3 Lexical Categories
5.1.3.1 Word Classes
Words are defined as independent forms that are either single
independent morphemes such as roots or the combination of independent and
bound morphemes. They are independent forms carrying meanings. Words in
Budai Rukai can be classified into nouns, verbs, adverbials and particles.
Examples of word classes are shown in (17), in which stems are in bold.
(17) a. Nouns: the combination of noun stems and affixes (prefixes, suffixes, or
circumfixes)
Stems Gloss Words Gloss
baava ‘wine’ ka-baava-an ‘real wine’
bts ‘millet’ kala-bts-an ‘millet festival’
vavalak ‘kid’ la-vavalak ‘kids’
agaga ‘to cook’ ta-ra-agaga ‘cook’
b. Verbs: the combination of verb stems and affixes (prefixes or/and infixes)
Stems Gloss Words Gloss
udal ‘rain’ u-a-udal ‘to rain’
savar ‘wind’ ma-savar ‘to be windy’
lama ‘to burn’ ki-a-lama ‘is burnt’
apts ‘to sleep’ api-a-apts ‘want to sleep’
c. Adverbials: the combination of adverbial morphemes and prefixes
Stems Gloss Words Gloss
daan ‘house’ i-a-daan ‘in the house’
umauma ‘farmland’ sini-umauma ‘from the farmland’
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mauu ‘night’ ku-mauu ‘last night’
dadavats ‘to walk’ pau-dadavats ‘by walking’
igan ‘time’ ku-igan ‘when’
d. Particles: in addition to independent interjection or exclamation particles,
quite a few linking particles or conjunctions were also attested in Budai
Rukai. Conjunctions must be used in clauses or sentence contexts in
combination with the other independent words. In the following examples,
particles are in bold.
Particles Gloss Example
si ‘and’ vai si amar ‘sun and moon’
maagi si madau ‘long and big’
ai ‘but’ ma ai mabitulu ‘tall but fat’
5.1.3.2 Reduplication
Words in Budai Rukai can be formed by reduplication, without adding
any other bound morphemes. Reduplication is a process of repetition of root
morphemes, and it occurs not only in noun roots but also in verbs. Full
reduplication generally occurs in noun roots or stems, whereas partial
reduplication frequently occurs in verbs. Partial reduplication in Budai Rukai can
be divided into two types: Ca-reduplication, in which C is the first consonant of
the roots or stems, and CV or CVCV reduplication of roots less final syllable. A
few examples of Budai Rukai reduplication are illustrated in (18).
(18) Reduplication Process in Budai Rukai
a. Reduplication of noun stems: full reduplication of noun stems indicates a
great amount or number, lasting for a period of time. However, the
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majority of the noun roots in Budai Rukai cannot be reduplicated. Rather,
the way to express plural nouns is to add the prefix la- before the noun
stems. Partial reduplication of the first syllable of the stems may indicate
small nouns. The following examples illustrate prefixing reduplication, in
which the reduplicants copy one or two syllables from the bases and
attach to the left edge of the bases.
Base Gloss Reduplication Gloss
agi ‘younger sibling’ agi-agi ‘younger siblings’
umas ‘person’ uma-umas ‘many people’
da ‘soil’ da-da ‘earth, land’
tsaili ‘year’ tsai-tsaili ‘year after year’
usa ‘two’ usa-usa ‘to last for two years’
daan ‘house’ da-daan ‘small house’
b. Reduplication of verb stems: reduplication of verb stems usually indicates
‘continuous, keep doing, do repeatedly’, ‘future’, or /intensity,
comparatively greater’. Reduplicants usually copy one or two syllables,
CV or CVCV, from the bases and attach to the left edge of the bases.
Verbs Gloss Reduplication Gloss
ua-tubi ‘to cry’ ua-tubi-tubi ‘to be crying’
ua-kan ‘to eat’ ua-kan- kan ‘to be eating’
ua-aai ‘to dance’ ua-aa-aai ‘to be dancing’
ma-au ‘big’ ma-a-au ‘rather big’
ma-busuku ‘drunk’ ma-busu-busuku ‘often drunk’
c. Reduplication of bound stems: reduplicated forms may be derived from
bound stems, whose meaning may not be known. In the following
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examples, reduplication must occur to form independent words. For
instance, the meaning of g is unknown, but the reduplicated form g-
g means ‘mountain’.
Reduplication Gloss
g-g ‘mountain’
ar-ar ‘light’
r-r ‘thunder’
isi-isi ‘beard’
d. Ca-Reduplication: this type of partial reduplication applies to verbs only.
Reduplicants copy the first consonant from the bases and add the vowel a
to form a fixed Ca-skeleton attached to the left edge of the bases. The new
reduplicated forms usually modify the meanings of the bases. When a
verb stem does not have a consonantal onset, only the vowel a is added.
Some examples of Ca-Reduplication are given as follows.
Verbs Gloss Reduplication Gloss
ua-tubi ‘to cry’ ma-ta-tubi ‘to cry together’
ua-iipi ‘to blow’ ma-a-iipa ‘to blow together’
ua-l ‘to see’ ma-a-l ‘to be careful’
kua-riva ‘to talk’ ma-ka-kua-riva ‘to talk to each other’
5.1.4 Compounds and Loans
Compounds are restricted in Budai Rukai, and they are more like the
combination of roots and affixes or construction markers. Two or more different
independent roots or stems cannot come together to form another new
independent word without affixes. A few examples are shown in (19).
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(19) Compounding Words Gloss
a. ma-usa-l mausal ‘twenty’
ten-two
b. ma-vau-lu-si-vva mavaulusivva ‘eighty-one’
ten-eight-and-one
c. sa-lata-an salataan ‘entrance’
tool-outside-nominalizer
d. kala-aaa-an kalaaaan ‘summer’
season-hot-nominalizer
On the other hand, the number of loans in Budai Rukai is relatively less.
Some attested examples are given in (20).
(20) Loans Gloss Origin
a. sunat ‘paper’ Japanese
b. tsukui ‘table’ Japanese
c. uuu ‘noodle’ Japanese
d. paisu ‘money’ Spanish
e. iaw ‘cat’ Taiwanese
To summarize, shapes of roots and affixes in Budai Rukai are predictable,
usually in the form of V, CV, VC, VCV, CVCV or CVCVCV. No final coda was
attested in roots or affixes, independent or bound morphemes.
5.2 Syllable Structure
The minimal Budai Rukai syllable consists of just a vowel, while the
maximal syllable structure is CVV, in which VV is a long vowel or a diphthong.
When the VV sequence is neither a long vowel nor a diphthong, it is divided into
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two syllables, e.g., da. ‘earth’, pa..n ‘bait’. Sequences more than two vowels
such as VVV or longer are divided into different syllables. CV-monosyllables are
restricted, and they usually represent grammatical words, e.g., ki ‘construction
marker (Patient Focus)’, lu ‘if’.
The types of Budai Rukai syllables are exemplified in (21).
(21) Syllable Type Budai Rukai Gloss
V i ‘at /in’
VV ai ‘ai (exclamation)’
CV si ‘and’
CVV vai ‘sun’
CVV kuu ‘owl’
The syllable structure of Budai Rukai is illustrated in (22), in which ‘σ’
represents a syllable unit. Rhyme is independent, because both V and VV-
syllables were found. Onset is not obligatory in Budai Rukai, and there is no
word-final coda. Phonetically, however, high vowels in the vowel sequences may
be realized as glides in natural speech. The syllable structure shown in (22)
represents the canonical syllable in elicitation.
(22) σ Onset Rhyme Nucleus (C) V (V)
VV-sequences may be long vowels or diphthongs. Diphthongs such as au, ai, ia
and ua may be phonetically realized as aw, aj, ja and wa at syllable-final or
syllable-initial position. Taking the representations of diphthongs into account,
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surface syllable structure in Budai Rukai includes the following syllable types: V,
GV, VG, VV, CV, CVV, and CVG, where G is a glide. No CC onset cluster was
found, and no CC cluster at word-internal or word-final position was found.
Most Formosan languages exhibit the PAN canonical CVC syllable
structure. As we have seen in Chapter 2, Paiwan has the syllable structure
(C)V(C), and onset clusters at word-medial position are allowed. Nevertheless,
no surface consonantal coda was found in Budai Rukai. Li (1973, 1995) states that
many Rukai words end in a released consonant followed by an optional short
vowel similar to the preceding vowel, and he further points out that no true
consonant appears in the word-final position in Budai Rukai. In his field reports
on Budai Rukai (1977a, 1995), every word ends with a vowel. Consonantal coda
is allowed in Tanan Rukai (cf. Li 1973), but not in Budai Rukai. In the current
project, on the other hand, a small number of sonorant codas such as nasals and
laterals was attested in the fast speech of the Budai Ruaki informants, but a
careful reconfirmation with the informants has led to the current proposal of the
(C)V syllable structure. In other words, words in Budai always end with a vowel
or a glide. Nasal or lateral codas were the perceptual results of words ending
with a weak schwa in fast speech. Evidence from the lexical roots and the
affixation in Budai Rukai, as shown in section 5.1, has indicated the prohibition
of consonantal codas in Budai stems or affixed forms.
All of the possible consonant and vowel arrangements for disyllabic
words are given in (23), to show the combination of syllable types in Budai Rukai.
(23) Disyllabic words in Budai Rukai
σ σ
(C) V (V) (C) V (V)
V.CV u b u ‘bladder’
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V.CV ts a ‘husked rice’
V.CVV i s iu ‘hair’
VV.CV aa b u ‘ashes’
VV.CV ii p i ‘to blow’
VV.CVV ia k ai ‘to exist’
CV.V d a ‘earth’
CV.VV k u au ‘hawk’
CV.VV b a iu ‘lake’
CV.CV b a a ‘enemy’
CV.CVV k ai ‘to hang’
CVV.CV ia b ‘to chop’
CVV.CV k t ‘to cut’
CVV.CVV l ia p ai ‘light (with ma-)’
The examples in (23) have shown that while diphthongs may occur word-
medially or word-finally, long vowels such as aa, ii, or occur word-medially in
these disyllabic words, i.e., penultimate syllables. Long vowels occur not only in
disyllabic words but also in monosyllabic and polysyllabic words of Budai Rukai.
Monosyllabic roots may bear long vowels. Sporadic long vowels attested in
antepenultimate position are stressed.
Echo vowels are synchronically presented in Budai Rukai. Words in Budai
Rukai generally end with a vowel. It has been mentioned that many Rukai words
end in a released consonant followed by a short vowel similar to the preceding
vowel (cf. Li 1973), and the vowel in this position is usually assumed to support a
word-final consonant (cf. Tsuchida 1976). Given that the vowel is not only a
‘supporting vowel’ but also identical to the vowel in the preceding syllable, it has
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been referred as an ‘echo vowel’ by most of the Formosan linguists. As far as
Budai Rukai is concerned, all the words end with a vowel, either a proper vowel
or an echo vowel. Echo vowels are present in roots or stems, affixes, and the
other independent words. Therefore, they are phonemic and should be included
in the underlying representations of Budai Rukai.
The distribution of echo vowels in Budai Rukai is given in (24). Echo
vowels are underlined and in bold.
(24) Echo vowel in Budai Rukai
Vowel Budai Rukai Gloss Budai Rukai Gloss
a. i bitsii ‘skin’ ma-palili ‘salty’
b. u patsulu ‘knee’ uulu ‘to drink’
matuulu ‘thirty’ mapitulu ‘seventy’
c. ma-rts ‘faint’ p ‘to finish’
maspatl ‘forty’ manml ‘sixty’
d. a amar ‘moon’ idam ‘tongue’
mapusal ‘twenty’ maimal ‘fifty’
Shown in (24), an echo vowel reflects the vowel of its preceding syllable.
When the vowel of its preceding syllable is a, the echo vowel becomes . In other
words, all the vowels are eligible for echo vowels at word-final position, except
the low vowel a. This indicates that the feature of [+low] is prohibited from the
copying of echo vowels. In addition, the echo vowels in Budai Rukai do not
appear after a glide j or w. Echo vowels appear after a full consonant in word-
final position. They have been added to the full consonant to avoid a coda, and
they have to follow the restrictions on copying the preceding syllables. The
copying process of the echo vowel is expressed in (25).
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(25) Copying of echo vowels in Budai: an echo vowel in word-final position
copies the place features of the preceding [-low] vowel
σ σ
N N
X X X X
[+cons] [-cons] [+cons] [-cons]
[+syll] [+syll]
PLACE PLACE
[-low]
When the obligatory feature [-low] in the base vowel for copying is not
available, central schwa is always the best candidate for the constraints on
copying. That is, echo vowel substitutes low vowel a in word-final position.
Echo vowel a is prohibited word-finally. Schwa could not just be a reduced
form of a in unstressed position, because it does not occur after the bases having
the vowel i or u in the same phonological condition.
Li (1973) reports in his study that in normal or rapid speech, the echo
vowels in Tanan Rukai are much weakened, devoiced, or dropped out, and the
preceding consonants are always released. In the current project, however, all the
echo vowels in Budai Ruaki were perceived clearly, except schwa . Echo vowels
are not unique in Budai, as they are also attested in the other dialects of Rukai (cf.
Li 1977a; Hsin 2000) and Tsou (cf. Tsuchida 1976). Among the Formosan linguists
who have ever studied the representations of echo vowels, Li (1973, 1975, 1977a)
presents the most insightful discussions on the issue. Based on his investigation
on five dialects of Rukai, Li (1977a) argues that echo vowels must be given in the
Lower Three Villages of Rukai but may be optional in Tanan dialect.
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The distribution and the quality of echo vowels are predictable. Yet, there
is still a distinction between a proper vowel and an echo vowel. A proper vowel
is always retained, in stems and affixed forms, whereas an echo vowel is
dropped when followed by a suffix that begins with a vowel in suffixed forms.
Some typical examples of echo vowels are given in (26a), whereas the contrastive
examples of proper vowels are shown in (26b). As a result, all the affixed forms
or independent words in Budai Rukai end with a vowel.
(26) a. Agent Focus GLOSS Imperative GLOSS
wa-uulu ‘to drink’ uul-a ‘Drink!’
wa-lb ‘to close’ lb-a ‘Close!’
wa-ttr ‘to kick’ ttr-a ‘Kick!’
wa-skt ‘to hide’ skt-a ‘Hide!’
wa-ibat ‘to pass’ ibat-a ‘Pass!’
b. Agent Focus GLOSS Imperative GLOSS
wa-kan ‘to eat’ kan-a ‘Eat!’
wa-pii ‘to choose’ pii-a ‘Choose!’
wa-saui ‘to return’ saui-a ‘Return!’
Shown in (26a), echo vowels are dropped when followed by the
imperative vocalic morpheme –a, while proper vowels are retained in the same
phonological environments. Echo vowels are dropped in reduplicated forms as
well as in the other suffixed forms. For instance, echo vowels are dropped in the
following words: davats-aku (< davats) ‘I walk’ and ara uul-uulu (<uulu)
‘don’t drink’, but proper vowels are retained when followed by the same suffixes
or in reduplicated forms, e.g., tsabu-aku (<tsabu) ‘I wrap’ and ara kan-kan
(<kan) ‘don’t eat’.
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The occurrence of echo vowels is related to the syllable type of the
following suffixes. In addition to the restriction mentioned above, echo vowels
do not occur before a suffix beginning with a, but do occur before consonants
and a suffix beginning with i. Some examples are given in (27). No attested suffix
in Budai begins with the other high vowel u; it is unknown, therefore, whether
echo vowels are dropped when followed by a suffix beginning with u.
(27) Verb GLOSS Suffixed Verb GLOSS
paagil-a ‘Start!’ paagili-a ‘has started’
uul-a ‘Drink!’ uulu-ini ‘what he drinks’
kadalam-aku ‘I like’ madalam-li ‘my like’
It has been proposed in the current project that echo vowels are treated as
epentheses to avoid consonantal coda in Budai Rukai. The occurrence of echo
vowels in Budai Rukai has been treated as phonemic and included in the syllable
structure of Budai Rukai. As we have seen the Budai syllable structure (C)V(V),
in which consonantal coda is forbidden, echo vowels must be present to avoid
any consonant coda. The presence of echo vowels has something to do with the
avoidance of consonantal codas.
5.3 Consonants
5.3.1 Consonant Inventory
The consonantal phonemic inventory of Budai Rukai is shown in Table 5.2.
Table 5.2: Budai Rukai Consonants
Place Labial Interdental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar
Plosive p b t d k g
Fricative v s
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Affricate ts
Trill r
Nasal m n
Lateral l
Approximant w j
Budai Rukai has twenty consonant phonemes. While both voiceless and
voiced phonemes are attested in the interdental place of articulation, only
voiceless fricative and affricate are found in the alveolar place of articulation. As
loans are relatively less in Budai Rukai, phonemes attested in loans only are not
included in the inventory here.
Affricate phoneme /ts/ was attested in both Paiwan and Budai Rukai.
The interdental fricative // was pronounced as [z] by some younger native
speakers of Budai Rukai, especially those who have frequent contact with
Paiwan speakers or the Chinese people. It has been noted that there are
divergences of pronunciation and speech among different age groups in the
villages of Budai Rukai. Since the informants participated in the current project
are either older speakers who live in the mountain tribes or middle-aged
speakers who were born and raised in the tribes, they usually preserve the
proper sound patterns of Budai Rukai. Li (1973) points out in his field report that
younger speakers of Tanan Rukai make no distinction between /s/ and // and
pronounce both of them as /s/. However, all the older or middle-aged
informants of Budai Rukai in the current study distinguish these two phonemes
in various phonological environments. In other words, /s/ and // are clearly
two independent phonemes in Budai Rukai.
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On the other hand, the orthography adopted for the native language
education in the Budai Rukai communities does cause confusion in the learning
of the language. The Romanized symbol z was used to represent the affricate
sound ts, and the syllabic symbols ze was used to represent the consonantal
fricative sound in the language textbooks of Budai Rukai, published by the
Government of Pingtung County. The mismatch between the symbols and the
sounds might be a barrier to the understanding of the sound patterns for the
Budai Rukai kids and non-native learners.
Words illustrating Budai Rukai consonants are listed in Table 5.3.
Table 5.3: Words illustrating the consonants of Budai Rukai
CONSONANTS Budai Rukai GLOSS
p pd ‘kidney’
b babila ‘money’
t tauu ‘tail’
d dada ‘ground’
k kala ‘bracelet’
g garomaras ‘centipede’
v vagisi ‘thigh’
amikulu ‘flea’
aaaam ‘bird’
s silu ‘beads’
ts tsalisi ‘rope’
n nana ‘pus’
m makulai ‘slender’
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uuan ‘nose’
r ruulu ‘muscus’
akral ‘river’
l labiti ‘man’s skirt’
idam ‘tongue’
w wats ‘artillery’
j jakai ‘to exist’
Budai does not allow consonantal coda, and glide coda was found in fast
speech, usually at the end of vowel sequences.
Minimal pairs exhibiting contrasts between the consonant phonemes are
given in (28). Subminimal pairs have been given when no minimal pairs exist in
the corpus.
(28) /p/ vs /b/ pk ‘navel’
bk ‘hog’
/m/ apal ‘foot’
amar ‘moon’
/b/ vs /v/ bai ‘millet cake’
vai ‘sun’
// baava ‘wine’
ava ‘flying squirrel’
/t/ vs /d/ tula ‘eel’
dula ‘wound’
/k/ tai ‘taro’
kai ‘this’
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// -ita ‘we (Gen, inclusive)’
ia ‘one’
// tuu ‘three’
usa ‘two’
/d/ vs // idai ‘hundred’
ia ‘one’
// da ‘earth’
ma-au ‘big’
/k/ vs /g/ piku ‘elbow’
pagu ‘gall’
// kisi ‘bowl’
isiisi ‘beard’
/g/ vs /ts/ pagai ‘rice’
patsai ‘to die’
// giigii ‘longan’
isiisi ‘beard’
/m/ vs /n/ maa ‘to take’
nana ‘pus’
/n/ vs // daan ‘house’
daa ‘moan’
/s/ vs /ts/ kusu ‘thou’
kutsu ‘head louse’
// asoou ‘pestle’
maoolo ‘to cough’
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// vs // kala ‘bracelet’
karaa ‘pangolin’
/ts/ aai ‘liver’
atsilai ‘water’
/l/ pp ‘to suck’
lplp ‘beans’
/r/ vs /l/ viri ‘left’
vili ‘water leech’
// vs // r-r ‘thunder’
s ‘tears’
/l/ vs // valu ‘honey’
vau ‘eight’
In Tanan Rukai, according to Li’s (1973) field report, all the twenty-three
consonants occur word-initially and medially, but // usually occurs only before
or after /a/. On the other hand, the surface distribution of the consonants in
Maga Rukai (cf. Hsin 2000) are generally free, except // and /z/, which are not
found word-initially. Similarly, in the current project, the distribution of the
phoneme // in Budai Rukai is much more restricted than the other consonantal
phonemes, as it occurs word-initially and word-medially before /a/ only.
The distinctive features (cf. Chomsky and Halle, 1968; Halle and Clements,
1983; Sagey 1986) of the Budai consonants are illustrated in Table 5.4.
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Table 5.4: Distinctive Features of Budai Rukai Consonants
PLACE LABIAL CORONAL DORSAL
Feature p b m v w t d n ts s l r j k g
cons + + + + – + + + + + + + + + + + – + + +
cont – – – + + + + – – – ± + + + + – + – – –
son – – + – + – – – – + – – + + + – + – – +
ant + + + + + + + + – – – –
dist – – – – – ± – – – – – –
strid – – – – – – – – – – ± + – – – – – – – –
voiced – + + + + – + – + + – – + + + + + – + +
nasal – – + – – – – – – + – – – – – – – – – +
Given that the canonical syllable structure in Budai Rukai does not allow
any consonantal coda, no consonantal phonemes occur in word-final position.
The surface distribution of the consonants is given in Table 5.5.
Table 5.5: Distribution of Budai Rukai Consonants2
Word-Initial Word-
Internal
Consonants
#___i #___u #___a #___ V__V
p pii ‘choose’
punaj ‘dove’
palaka ‘branch’
pd ‘kidney’
iipi ‘to blow’
b bilibili ‘to pull’
bulavan ‘copper’
balbal ‘bamboo’
blbl ‘banana’
ubu ‘bladder’
t tikuraj ‘phrasant’
tula ‘eel’
tavaulu ‘pepper’
tb ‘belt’
kt ‘to cut’
d diidii dukats davats (waad) maduu ‘cooked’
2 Words in parentheses were attested syllable-initially but not word-initially.
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‘spear’ ‘mud’ ‘to walk’ ‘to raise’ k kipii
‘clothing’ kutsu ‘louse’
kala ‘bracelet’
kla ‘to arrive’
aks ‘camphor
laurel’ g giigii
‘longan’ (warugu)
‘to lift’ garumaras ‘centipede’
gg ‘to cut’
aga ‘cooked rice’
v vili ‘water leech’
(patsavuu) ‘to punish’
valu ‘bee’
vva ‘one’
tivar ‘head
feather’ iiri
‘stalk of taro plant’
uu ‘breast’
adi ‘female deer’
pp ‘suck’
maoolo ‘to cough’
ali ‘Feminine
name’
karaa ‘pangolin’
s supuu ‘leaf’
sauliuli ‘wild orchid’
spat ‘four’
mabusuku ‘drunk’
ts tsumaj ‘bear’
tsaia ‘ear’
tsnk ‘thorn’
matsa ‘eye’
ilo ‘beads’
kiii ‘goat’
t timi ‘cheek’
iiti ‘mud/earth’
n (ini) ‘no’
numi-an ‘you’
nana ‘pus’
(dan) ‘house’
agan ‘grandchild’
m mita-an ‘us’
mutsal ‘leak’
maramu ‘crispy’
(madalam) ‘to love’
lamu ‘dew’
iiii ‘beard’
uuan ‘nose’
(laaj) ‘to buy’
ta ‘raw’
uulu ‘to drink’
r rigi ‘horse’
ruulu ‘mucus’
rabuku ‘lime’
(maridar) ‘fast’
abr ‘coconut’
iiii ‘to wipe’
uruuru ‘to push’
aa ‘above’
k ‘back’
uas ‘gray hair’
l limatk ‘mountain
leech’
luusu ‘brain’
laaj ‘to buy’
lk ‘ear
discharge’
bl ‘fur coat’
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iaw ‘face’
ulaj ‘baby’
al ‘charcoal’
p ‘finish’
aima ‘hand’
w (anuwidi) ‘why
stand?’
(kiwupa) ‘to rob’
wats ‘artillery’
kaowa ‘not eaist’
j (apujini) ‘his fire’
(baju) ‘lake’
jakai ‘exist’
vajan ‘lake’
Shown in Table 5.5, most of the consonants occur freely, except the
palatalized sounds, glides, and the voiced interdental fricative //. Fricative /s/
and affricate /ts/ are in complementary distribution with their palatalized
counterparts. The phoneme // occurs word-initially or word-medially before
the low vowel a only. As we have seen earlier, subminimal pairs between the
voiced interdental fricative and its voiceless counterpart were attested. The
sound has been treated as an independent phoneme in Budai Rukai with
restricted distribution.
5.3.2 Allophones of Consonants
In this section, both phonological features and phonetic variation of the
consonantal segments in Budai Rukai are investigated. Budai Rukai has a set of
seven stops, a voiced and a voiceless series at bilabial, alveolar, and velar places
of articulation, plus a retroflex plosive. Most of the informants do not produce
aspirated sounds in general. In the following sections, allophones of fricatives
and the affricate are elaborated and exemplified. Note that some free variations
were attested even in an individual speaker’s speech, typically, in younger
speaker’s speech. It is worth mentioning that younger speakers would sometimes
use an alternative allophone, and sometimes not.
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5.3.2.1 Fricatives
Budai has four fricatives /v, //, // and /s/. The feature [+continuant]
distinguishes fricatives from stop segments. Phonological features of each
segment and their allophonic alternation are given as follows.
/v/: voiced labiodental fricative, [LABIAL, +consonantal, +voiced, -sonorant,
+continuant]. Phonetic allophone [b] usually alternates with [v] at word-initial
position. Typical examples are illustrated in (29).
(29) /v/ [v] voiced labiodental fricative.
The sound occurs before and after any vowels word-initially
and word-medially only.
It does not occur in word-final position.
/valu/ [valu] ‘honey’
/vva/ [vva] ‘one’
/vai / [vai] ‘Budai’
/valisi/ [valisi] ‘tooth’
[b] voiced bilabial stop.
The sound occurs before a schwa nucleus at word-initial
position. [b] and [v] are allophones in free variation before a
schwa nucleus at word-initial position
/vva/ [bva] ‘one’
/vai / [bai] ‘Budai’
[w] labial approximant.
The sound occurs before a non-schwa nucleus at word-initial
position. [w] and [v] are allophones in free variation before a
non-schwa nucleus at word-initial position
/valisi/ [walisi] ‘tooth’
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//, //: interdental fricatives, [CORONAL, +consonantal, -sonorant,
+continuant, -strident, +anterior]. The feature [-strident, +distributed]
distinguishes from strident s. Although voiceless fricatives // and /s/ are
two independent phonemes, alternation between and s was attested in younger
speaker’s speech. The sound z was attested as an allophone of the phoneme //.
Allophonic examples are shown in (30) and (31).
(30) // [] voiceless interdental fricative.
The sound occurs before and after any vowels word-initially
and word-medially only.
/uu/ [uu] ‘breast’
/tb/ [tb] ‘belt’
/ia/ [ia] ‘one’
/aliagumu/ [aliagumu] ‘ipomiea’
[s] voiceless alveolar fricative.
The sound occurs word-initially and word-medially before
/a/ only, and it was attested in younger speaker’s speech
only. [s] and [] are allophones in free variation word-initially
and word-medially before [a] in younger speaker’s speech.
/ia/ [isa] ‘one’
/aliagumu/ [saliagumu] ‘ipomiea’
(31) // [] voiced interdental fricative.
The sound occurs word-initially and word-medially before
the low vowel /a/ only.
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/ali/ [ali] ‘Feminine name’
/baa/ [baa] ‘enemy’
/aaaam/ [aaaam] ‘bird’
/ma-akaam/ [makaam] ‘thirsty’
/karaa / [karaa] ‘pangolin’
[z] voiced alveolar fricative.
The sound occurs word-initially and word-medially before
the low vowel /a/ only, and it was attested in younger
speaker’s speech. [z] and [] are allophones in free variation
word-initially and word-medially before [a] in younger
speaker’s speech.
/ma-akaam/ [makazam] ‘thirsty’
/karaa / [karaza] ‘pangolin’
/s/: voiceless alveolar fricative, [CORONAL, +consonantal, -sonorant,
+continuant, +strident, +anterior]. Phoneme /s/ differs from // in its [+strident]
feature. Phoneme /s/ has a palatalized allophone []. The palatalized allophone
occurs before a high front vowel /i/ only. In other words, the allophonic
variation is conditional. The feature [-anterior] distinguishes [] from [s].
Examples of allophones are given in (32).
(32) /s/ [s] voiceless alveolar fricative.
The sound occurs word-initially and word-medially before
/a/, /u/ and // only. It does not occur before /i/.
/sagi-agisi/ [sagiagii] ‘boundary’
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/supuu/ [supuu] ‘leaf’
/uas/ [uas] ‘white hair’
[] voiceless post-alveolar fricative.
The sound occurs word-initially or word-medially before a
the high front vowel /i/ only. [] and [s] are allophones in
complementary distribution.
/silo/ [ilo] ‘beads’
/isiu/ [iiw] ‘hair’
5.3.2.2 Affricates
The phoneme /ts/ is the only affricate found in Budai Rukai, as well as in
Paiwan. Affricate /ts/ differs from /t/ and /s/, with the features of [CORONAL,
+consonantal, -sonorant, +anterior]. It has a palatalized allophone [t]. The
feature [-anterior] distinguishes t from ts. The palatalized allophone occurs only
before a high front vowel /i/ in Budai Rukai. Some examples are shown in (33).
(33) /ts/ [ts] voiceless alveolar affricate.
The sound occurs word-initially and word-medially. It does
not occur before /i/.
/tsubu/ [tsubu] ‘unhusked rice’
/itsu/ [itsu] ‘fruit peel’
[t] voiceless post-alveolar affricate.
The sound occurs word-initially and word-medially before a
front vowel /i/ only. [t] and [ts] are allophones in
complementary distribution categorically.
/tsivar/ [tivar] ‘head feather’
230
/katsii/ [katii] ‘trousers’
/tsukutsuku/ [tsukutsuku] ‘turtle’
/tsukui/ [tsukui] ‘desk’
[z] voiced alveolar fricative.
The sound occurs word-initially and word-medially before
/u/ only in younger speaker’s speech or loans. [ts] and [z] are
allophones in free variation before /u/ in younger speaker’s
speech or loans.
/tsukutsuku/ [zukuzuku] ‘turtle’
/tsukui/ [zukui] ‘desk’
On the other hand, Budai has two retroflex phonemes, alveolar // and
lateral //. Retroflexion is a distinctive feature, whereas palatalized sounds are
allophones of the fricative and affricate phonemes in Budai Rukai. No allophones
were attested in Budai Rukai nasals, as no consonantal clusters (nasals preceding
homorganic stops, for instance) could occur word-internally (§5.2).
Neutralization among the nasals in Paiwan does not occur in Budai Rukai.
5.4 Vowels
5.4.1 Vowel Inventory
The vowel inventory of Budai Rukai is shown in (34).
(34) i u ii uu
a aa
Budai Rukai has four aboriginal vowels. As shown in (34), vowels in
Budai Rukai have two types of quantity, short and long. Vowel length contrast is
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generally expressed in penultimate position, though sporadic long vowels were
also attested in antepenultimate position and the nucleus of monosyllabic roots.
On the other hand, a few cases of mid-high back vowels o were attested in earlier
fieldwork reports on Budai Rukai (cf. Li 1977a; Zeitoun 2000) and the current
project. Yet, no minimal pairs were found for the independent phonemic status
of o. The phoneme /u/ was read as [o] with or without phonological condition
in various contexts, and the alternation between u and o is not always
predictable. Thus, the sound [o] is treated as a free allophone of the phoneme
/u/ in Budai Rukai.
In Li’s (1977a) reconstruction study, the sound o was selected for the
phonemic representation in both Budai Rukai and Proto-Rukai. However,
Zeitoun (2000) selects /u/ as a vowel phoneme in her preliminary reference
grammar, with occasional occurrence of the sound o in the wordlist. Given that
the phonetic alternation between u and o has been attested in Paiwan and the
other dialects of Rukai, following the practice of most of the Formosan linguists,
only four aboriginal vowels a, i, u and have been selected for the phonemic
representation in the current project. However, the sound o is phonetically
present. The detailed acoustic description, such as formant plot of the vowel
phonemes, is found in section 5.5.
Vowel characteristics of Budai Rukai vowels are given in Table 5.6.
Table 5.6: Summary of Budai Rukai Vowel Characteristics
Vowel Characteristics i high front unrounded
u (mid) high back rounded
mid central unrounded
a low central unrounded
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Words illustrating Budai Rukai vowels are listed in Table 5.7. Long
vowels occur in monosyllabic roots, penultimate and antepenultimate position.
Table 5.7: Words illustrating the vowels of Budai Rukai
VOWEL Budai Rukai GLOSS
i isiu ‘hair’
ii iipi ‘to blow’
u ubu ‘bladder’
uu ma-duu ‘cooked’
bl ‘fur coat’
wa-p ‘to squeeze’
a abar ‘coconut’
aa aapts ‘to sleep’
Minimal pairs or sub-minimal pairs exhibiting contrasts between the
vowel phonemes are given in (35).
(35) /i/ vs /u/ timu ‘salt’
tumu ‘grandfather’
/a/ -ini ‘their’
ina ‘mother’
// piku ‘elbow’
pd ‘kidney’
/a/ vs /u/ abar ‘coconut’
ubal ‘body hair’
// balbal ‘bamboo’
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blbl ‘banana’
/aa/ vs // kaats ‘to bite’
kt ‘to cut’
/u/ vs // puku ‘to tie’
pd ‘kidney’
uruuru ‘to push’
rr ‘thunder’
/uu/ vs // kuupa ‘to steal’
kt ‘to cut’
The minimal or sub-minimal pairs exhibiting contrasts between short and
long vowels are given in (36).
(36) /aa/ vs /a/ daan ‘house’
da ‘earth’
kaa ‘fish’
kan ‘to eat’
/uu/ vs /u/ kuu ‘owl’
ku ‘construction marker’
oo vs o ma-oolo ‘to cough’
oo ‘breast’
/ii/ vs /i/ iipi ‘to blow’
sipi ‘to dream’
// vs // pk ‘navel’
pd ‘kidney’
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The examples in (36) have shown that vowel length contrast occurs either at
penultimate syllable of disyllabic words or monosyllabic roots. Although long
vowels were also attested in antepenultimate position, minimal pairs between
long and short vowels in antepenultimate position were not found in the corpus.
In other words, long vowels occurring at antepenult may be phonetic, as a
realization of the prosodic patterns in the language.
The distribution of the vowels in Budai Rukai is rather free. All the vowels
in Budai Rukai can occur word-initially, word-medially, and word-finally. There
are no sequences of long and short vowels, such as iia, aai, uui, and i, which
must be syllabified into different syllables in utterances.
Vowel clusters in Budai Rukai are shown in (37).
(37) Vowel clusters
a-series au auu ‘below’
ai aili ‘arrow’
a tan ‘trap’
aa kaats ‘to bite’
i-series ia pipian ‘lip’
iu isiu ‘hair’
i matitsu ‘to fear’
ii li-siisuku ‘bird nest’
u-series ua suap ‘broom’
ui apui ‘fire’
uu luusu ‘brain’
-series a bat ‘flesh’
aiss ‘nit’
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Shown in (37), there are a few restrictions on which vowels may occur
together. In a V1V2 sequence, if V1 is a schwa, only the low vowel /a/ can follow
the central schwa and appear in the sequence as a V2. Another distribution gap is
the combination of /u/, which does not occur in the language. Schwa occurs
only after a and i in the V1V2 vowel sequence as a V2.
All the echo vowels in Budai Ruaki were perceived clearly in word-final
position, except schwa . On the other hand, all vowels are eligible for echo
vowels in word-final position except the low vowel a. It is proposed here that
Budai Rukai vowels have a sonority hierarchy as follows: a > i, u > . Vowel
sequences can be further divided into two groups, according to their respective
sonority. A-series vowel clusters are falling-sonority sequences, whereas /ia/
and /ua/ are in rising-sonority sequences, with first vowel less sonorous than
the second. Yet, a high vowel preceding or following a schwa cannot be realized
as a glide in any phonetic contexts. When the vowels /i/ and /u/ precede the
low vowel /a/, the high vowels can be phonetically realized as prevocalic glides,
as shown in ja and wa. When the low vowel /a/ precedes the high vowels /i/
and /u/, vowel sequences may be realized as aj and aw, in which off-glides
occur. Schwa cannot be a component of diphthongs. Two sequential vowels such
as /a/, /a/, and /i/ are syllabified into two distinct syllables.
Vowel sonority might have something to do with the quality of echo
vowels. Recall the previous discussion in section 5.2 that vowel copying occurs in
all the vowels except the low vowel /a/, in which case // is the substitution.
Hsin (2003) argues that an echo vowel tends to be dropped in normal or rapid
speech of Maga Rukai, and she further points out that the properties associated
with the echo vowels seem to be incompatible with the most sonorous segment
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/a/. The weak schwa with low sonority again becomes the best substitution for a
sonorous vowel at word-final position in Budai Rukai.
5.4.2 Allophones of Vowels
In this section, allophones of vowels in Budai Rukai are exemplified.
Budai Rukai has four vowels /i/, /u/, /a/, and //. All the vowel segments are
[+syllabic, -consonantal, +sonorant]. High back rounded vowel /u/ in Budai was
transcribed as mid-high /o/ in Li’s (1977a) earlier field report. However,
phoneme /u/ was selected in Li’s (1995) later wordlist of Budai Rukai. Different
selection of phoneme representation in Budai Rukai has indicated that the
phonetic variation of the phoneme /u/ in different phonetic contexts does cause
the confusion of the field workers.
Examples of vowel allophones are given in (38)-(41).
(38) /i/ [i] high front unrounded vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of the sound [i].
/idai/ [idai] ‘hundred’
/viri/ [viri] ‘left’
/baii/ [baii] ‘jaw’
/tsaki/ [tsaki] ‘excrement’
[e] mid high unrounded vowel.
The sound occurs word-medially or word-finally after a
VELAR consonant only. [e] and [i] are allophones in free
variation after a VELAR consonant in syllable non-initial
position.
/tsaki/ [tsake] ‘excrement’
/kimm/ [kemm] ‘mind’
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(39) /u/ [u] high back rounded vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of [u].
/utal/ [utal] ‘rain’
/butsu/ [butsu] ‘scrotum’
/uuan/ [uuan] ‘nose’
/uman/ [uman] ‘other’
/ma-kiuu/ [makiuu] ‘curved’
[o] mid-high back rounded vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of [o].
The sound occurs word-medially or word-finally more
frequently before or after an interdental or retroflex
consonantal segment. [u] and [o] are in free variation in
many unpredictable contexts.
/pa-uu/ [pa-oo] ‘to nurse’
/uman/ [oman] ‘other’
/ma-kiuu/ [makioo] ‘curved’
(40) /a/ [a] low central unrounded lax vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of [a].
/aisi/ [aisi] ‘eagle’
/tsap / [tsap] ‘seed of fruit’
/ava/ [ava] ‘flying squirrel’
/aga/ [aga] ‘cooked rice’
/gatsgats/ [gatsgats] ‘scratch’
[] low back unrounded tense vowel.
The sound occurs word-initially, word-medially or word-
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finally before or after a VELAR consonant only. [] and [a]
are allophones in free variation before or after a VELAR
consonant.
/aga/ [g] ‘cooked rice’
/kaa/ [k] ‘fish’
/gatsgats/ [gtsgts] ‘scratch’
(41) // [] central unrounded lax vowel.
There are no restrictions on the distribution of [].
/tsa/ [tsa] ‘husk of rice’
/apa/ [apa] ‘seed of grain’
/b/ [b] ‘smoke’
/ikats/ [ikats] ‘lightning’
/balats/ [balats] ‘root’
[] high central unrounded vowel.
The sound occurs after the affricate /ts/ or the sibilant /s/
in word-final position. [] and [] are allophones in free
variation word-finally after [ts] or [s].
/ikats/ [ikats] ‘lightning’
/balats/ [balats] ‘root’
Many cases of the o sound occur before or after an interdental or retroflex
consonantal segment, e.g., ooo ‘marrow’, ooo ‘pillar’, oomoko ‘fish cage’. It
has been attested in quite a few cases that the high back vowel are assimilated
with its preceding or following [-high] vowels in the same words. The
assimilation occurs word-initially, word-medially or word-finally before or after
239
a [-high] vowel. The asymmetric assimilation pattern, in which vowel lowering
occurs but not raising, is exemplified in (42). [u] and [o] are allophones in free
variation in these examples.The formula of feature spreading is expressed in (43).
(42) Budai Rukai Vowel Assimilation GLOSS
[wa-oku] ~ [wa-oko] ‘to dig’
[okutsu] ~ [okotso] ‘mountain perilla’
[roolu] ~ [roolo] ‘urine’
[kuluo] ~ [koloo] ‘fart’
[taopunu] ~ [taopono] ‘hat’
[tuburo] ~ [toboro] ‘bamboo shoot’
[oobuu] ~ [ooboo] ‘bag’
(43) Assimilation as Feature Spreading
σ σ σ
R R R
N N N
X X X X X X
[+cons] [-cons] [+cons] [-cons] [+cons] [-cons]
[+syll] [+syll] [+syll]
PLACE PLACE PLACE
Tongue Body Tongue Body Tongue Body
[-high]
The assimilation as spreading can be progressive or regressive
(anticipatory). Either direction of feature spreading occurs in Budai Rukai. Vowel
Lowering occurs to make high back vowels become mid-high back vowels, and it
has become an important free alternation in Budai. Because of the distribution
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facts of the vocalic phonemes and the allophones, and because of the minimal
pairs attested between /u/ and the other vocalic phonemes, the sound u has
been considered the representative phoneme in the vowel inventory.
On the other hand, Budai Rukai has two glide segments /w/ and /j/. The
status of glides in Budai Rukai is somewhat marginal, given that there is no clear
minimal pair showing the contrast between glide approximants and high vowels,
and that they do not seem to affect the prosodic patterns of the language. As we
have seen that words in Budai end with a vowel, glides usually occurs either at
word-final position in rapid speech or at word-initial position within a vowel
sequence. Glides, however, are in some way associated with the syllabification in
vowel clusters. As the vowel sonority hierarchy in Budai is a > i, u, the outputs of
the vowel sequences /au/, /ai/, /ua/ and /ia/ are [aw], [aj], [wa], and [ja]
respectively. Onset and coda slots are usually the optimal positions for glides,
e.g., japlaj (< ia-plai ) ‘to float’, walupu (< u-a-lupu) ‘to hunt’.
Glide /j/ alternates with the voiced interdental fricative // in stem-final
position when followed by suffixes beginning with /a/. More discussion on the
morphophonemic alternation is found in section 5.7.1. The allophones of the
glide /j/ are shown in (44).
(44) /j/ [j] palatal glide. It occurs word-initially before [a], word-
medially before [a], [u], [i], and word-finally.
/kamaja/ [kamaja] ‘mango’
/baju/ [baju] ‘lake’
/jakai/ [jakaj] ‘exist’
/apuj-ini/ [apujini] ‘his fire’
[] voiced interdental fricative.
It occurs in stem-final position before suffixes beginning
241
with /a/ only. [j] and [] are allophones in complementary
distribution in stem-final position when followed by
suffixes beginning with [a].
/ka-vaj-an/ [kavaan] ‘Budai tribe’
/sa-baj-an/ [sabaan] ‘wedding gift’
To sum up, these two controversial glides are included in the Budai Rukai
phonemic inventory. The phonemes /w/ and /j/ are glides with the features of
[-consonantal, +continuant, +sonorant, -syllabic, +high]. The feature
[-consonantal] distinguishes glide approximants from the other consonantal
phonemes, whereas the feature [-syllabic] distinguishes glides from proper
vowel phonemes.
5.5 Segmental Phonetics
In this section, phonetic representations of segments are discussed. The
articulation of consonants and vowel space are examined here.
5.5.1 Acoustic Description of Voiceless Stops
None of the existing documentation or field report provides empirical
evidence for the phonetic properties of Budai Rukai or any of the Rukai dialects.
In the current project, Voice Onset Time (VOT) measures were taken for the
voiceless non-aspirated stops. There is a general tendency for VOT to be longer
when the closure for a stop is articulated further back in the vocal tract (Fischer-
JOrgensen, 1954; Peterson & Lehiste, 1960; Cho & Ladefoged, 1999; Taff et al.
2001). VOT has been known to vary with different places of articulation. The
differences of VOT have become parameters for the distinction of voiceless stops
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in laboratories and in the fields. Budai Ruaki has bilabial, alveolar, and velar
stops. In other words, the VOT for a Budai velar stop will be the longest among
the voiceless stops, i.e., velar > alveolar > bilabial stop, given that the parameter
of VOT is straightforward. Although some differences in VOT may be
determined by aerodynamic factors, others simply reflect the behavior associated
with a particular language, as studies on VOT have revealed the inconsistent
variation between the stops (Cho & Ladefoged, 1999; Taff et al. 2001).
The Voice Onset Times (VOTs) of stop consonants were investigated by
reference to the words in Table 5.8.
Table 5.8: Words for VOT investigation in Budai Rukai stop consonants
CV Budai Rukai Gloss Budai Rukai Gloss
pi pitu ‘seven’ sipi ‘dream’
pu punai ‘dove’ punu ‘forehead’
pa patsai ‘to die’ pagu ‘gall’
p pd ‘kidney’ pl ‘spirit’
p pk ‘navel’ p-pk ‘lizard’
ti timu ‘salt’ tikian ‘small’
tu tula ‘eel’ tumu ‘grandfather’
ta tara ‘ring’ taupunu ‘hat’
taa taaka ‘older siblings’ wa-taa ‘to nod’
t tb ‘belt’ tbtban ‘eaves’
ki kipii ‘clothing’ kisisi ‘goat’
ku kutsu ‘head louse’ kuabau ‘rat’
ka katsui ‘trousers’ kala ‘bracelet’
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kaa kaats ‘to bite’ kaa ‘fish’
k klaulau ‘finger’ kla ‘to arrive’
The recorded data were sampled at 20,000 Hz using the Praat spectral
analysis system. The interval between the onset of the release burst and the first
glottal pulse was measured on simultaneous waveform and spectrographic
displays. A total of 60 elicitation tokens (30 X 2 speakers, one male and one
female) from two Budai Rukai native speakers were measured. The data were
statistically analyzed by T-tests and one-factor or two-factor ANOVAs.
The VOTs for labial stops tend to be shorter than the other two stops in
Budai Rukai, as shown in Figure 5.2. One-factor analyses of variance have
revealed that the effect of place was significant (F [2, 57]=53.75, p<0.0001). In post
hoc analyses, the labial stops were distinct from alveolar and velar stops at
p<0.0001, and there was significant VOT difference (p<0.0001) between alveolar
and velar stops. No significant differences were found between the two speakers.
05
1015202530354045
p t k
VO
T (m
sec)
Figure 5.2: Mean VOTs of Budai Rukai Voiceless Stops
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Phonetic sounds [p], [t] and [k] have significantly different representations
from one another. The results agree with the general observation that stops with
back articulated closure such as /t/ and /k/ have longer VOTs than /p/.
5.5.2 Acoustic Description of Vowels
Budai Rukai has a four-vowel system: /i/, /u/, /a/and //. Vowel /i/
has been described as a high front vowel, /u/ as a (mid) high back vowel, /a/ as
a low vowel, and // as a central schwa. As vowels might be perceived as its
phonetic allophones in various contexts, empirical examination on vowel
distribution provides direct evidence for the vowel inventory constructed in the
current study. Words given in Table 5.9 were elicited and recorded by four Budai
speakers, two females and two males. For each vowel the data consisted of three
examples after a bilabial, alveolar, and velar stops.
Table 5.9: Words exemplifying contrasts among Budai Rukai vowels
Bilabial Budai GLOSS Budai GLOSS Budai GLOSS
pi pilai ‘lame’ iipi ‘to blow’ pitu ‘seven’
pu puku ‘joint’ wa-lupu ‘to hunt’ pu-puli ‘white’
pa pa-uu ‘to nurse’ sa-pakpak ‘wing’ pana ‘to shoot’
p pd ‘kidney’ suap ‘broom’ pl ‘spirit’
Alveolar Budai GLOSS Budai GLOSS Budai GLOSS
ti tikurai ‘pheasant’ sititi ‘to hit’ tinono ‘weave’
tu tumu ‘grandfather’ wa-tuu ‘leak’ tubi ‘weep’
ta tara ‘ring’ ma-ta ‘raw’ tapusu ‘window’
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t tsp ‘in inhale’ bat ‘flesh’ ibat ‘to pass’
Velar Budai GLOSS Budai GLOSS Budai GLOSS
ki kipii ‘clothing’ tsaki ‘excrement’ kidii ‘spoon’
ku kutsu ‘head louse’ ma-busuku ‘drunk’ kurai ‘dried taro’
ka katsipi ‘chopsticks’ kaka ‘older siblings’ katsii ‘trousers’
k kai ‘to hang’ lk ‘earwax’ tubak ‘shell’
The phonetic qualities of the Budai Rukai vowels were examined, based
on the measurements of the frequencies of the first, second and the third formant
values. Recorded data were transferred into the computer at a sampling rate of
22,000 Hz. Vowel midpoints were taken for formant measurements. The formant
values were determined from the LPC spectra with a 30ms frame calculation,
and a pre-emphasis was applied to the signal prior to calculation, with an
additional 512-point FFT calculation check. When the LPC measurement did not
coincide with the FFT spectra, formant values were determined from the LPC. A
total of 144 tokens (36 X 4) were selected for the principal formant measurements.
Formant plots of Budai female and male main vowels are illustrated in
Figure 5.3 and Figure 5.4 respectively. The plots shown were drawn with UCLA
JPlotFormants Version 1.4 software. The ellipses were drawn with radii of two
standard derivations along the axes of the first and the second principal formants.
Each vowel’s symbol was drawn at the mean of the vowel’s formant plot in large
font. The symbol ‘>’ in the figures indicates schwa //.
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Figure 5.3: Formant Plot for Female Budai Rukai Speakers
The figures provide a phonetic description of the vowel qualities in Budai
Rukai vowels. Shown in Figure 5.3 and Figure 5.4, the distribution of the sound
[u] is slightly lower than that of [i], though both of /i/ and /u/ have the
phonemic feature of [+high]. Both of the mean F1 values in Budai female and
male vowel /i/ are lower than those in the vowel /u/, which indicates the
tongue position for Budai vowel /i/ is higher than that for the vowel /u/.
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Figure 5.4: Formant Plot for Male Budai Rukai Speakers
The height of the segment /u/ is closer to that of the schwa segment. In other
words, the lower part of the /u/-ellipse may be perceived as a phonetic [o]
sound. This supports the observation that segment /u/ was perceived as [o] in
some contexts, and it also explains why the phoneme /u/ was transcribed as ‘u’
in one field report and as ‘o’ in another. The distribution of the Budai Rukai
vowels generally supports the dispersion theory (Liljencrants and Lindblom,
1972), which predicts that contrastive vowels are spaced with a sufficient contrast,
such as /i/ and /u/. There is greater variance, however, in F1 than F2 in the
female speaker’s schwa and the low vowel tokens. Formant plot for male Budai
Rukai speakers, on the other hand, indicates that the low vowel /a/ is more
likely to be a back vowel phoneme // when preceded or followed by a back
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segment. Coarticulation does affect the tongue position of the vowel sounds.
Accordingly, the vowel sounds may be perceived as various allophones in
different phonetic contexts.
5.6 Stress
Stress in Budai Rukai has been a controversial issue in earlier studies (Li
1977a; Ross 1992; Blust 1997), but none of them offer a proper account for the
stress patterns in Budai Rukai. The existing documentation of Budai Rukai is
either lack of stress marking or based on second-hand field report. None of the
existing studies have made a cautious examination on the stress of Budai Rukai,
let alone a theoretical account for the stress patterns.
Li (1973, 1977a) has done a comprehensive study on Tanan Rukai and a
reconstruction study of Proto-Rukai, but the data of Budai Rukai, unfortunately,
are relatively less and mainly cognates for comparison purpose. Later studies
(cf. Ross 1992; Blust 1997) on Budai Rukai stress are based on Li’s fieldwork data.
Li (1977a) points out that when the historically secondary vowels, echo vowels,
were taken into account, stress is seen to fall mainly on the final syllable in Tanan,
but on the penult in the other dialects. Blust (1997) states that although Li (1977a)
reconstructs Proto-Rukai forms for all cognate sets presented, Li does not include
stress contrasts in his reconstructions. Ross (1992) reexamines Li’s data and sees a
different history in the materials of the Budai dialect. According to Ross (1992),
stress is predictable in some phonological environments in Budai, but not in
others. Ross (1992) proposes the following patterns in Budai Rukai:
1. Trisyllables: second syllable accented
2. Quadrisyllables: second syllable accented
3. CVCV: penult accented
4. CVCVC: accent unpredictable
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However, Blust (1997) points out that Ross’s theory yields a correct prediction in
about 57% (20/35) of the cases, and an incorrect prediction in about 43%. It thus
does not offer a serious alternative to independent development as an
explanation for the agreements noted between Budai Rukai and Proto-
Philippines. In fact, much more errors have been found in Ross’s (1992) proposal
here. As we have seen earlier, Budai Ruaki does not allow consonantal coda.
Therefore, the account for the CVCVC accent makes no sense for the prediction
of stress. In addition, some affixes do not get stress, and syllable weight is not
mentioned in Ross’s proposal. Budai has two sets of vowels, short and long.
Stress in Budai has been attested to be quantity-sensitive in the current study.
Li (1973) notices that the monosyllabic articles [ka], [sa], [ku] and [ki] do
not bear stress in Tanan Rukai. The articles mentioned in Li’s study are treated as
prefixes or construction markers here. As for the stress in Budai Rukai, Li (1995)
describes in his wordlist as falling on the penultimate syllable, but less frequently
on the final or antepenult. No more information about Budai stress was
mentioned anymore. In Zeitoun’s (2000) preliminary reference grammar,
similarly, stress patterns in Budai are no more than on the penultimate syllable of
a word, with a few words on the antepenultimate syllable. The difference
between Li’s (1995) wordlist and Zeitoun’s (2000) description is the existence of
final stress. No final stress was attested in Zeitoun’s (2000) data. All these
mentioned above have shown that an exhaustive investigation on Budai stress is
definitely needed.
5.6.1 Distribution of Stress
A Budai Rukai word typically has a primary stress in its elicitation form.
Longer sequences, usually five-syllable words or longer, may have a secondary
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stress. Roots or stems, and derivation forms in Budai Rukai can form a prosodic
word to which primary and secondary stress can apply. A prosodic word in
Budai Rukai usually carries independent components of meanings. The
distribution of stress in Budai Rukai is given in (45).
(45) The distribution of stress in Budai Rukai: main stress in Budai Rukai falls on
the rightmost, the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable of each prosodic
word. Note that in a disyllabic form, there would be no antepenultimate
stress. Prefixes and infixes are excluded from the domain to which primary
stress can apply. In the following examples, the single bracket ‘[‘ indicates
the left edge of the prosodic domain for primary stress.
a. Stress in Roots: in monosyllabic roots, stress falls on the nucleus of the
syllable; in disyllabic roots, main stress falls on the penult; in trisyllabic or
longer roots, if the penultimate syllable is light, main stress falls on the
antepenult; if the penult is heavy, main stress falls on the penult.
Stress Shape Root GLOSS
σ CV: kúu ‘owl’
σ CV: ‘neck’
σσ CVV dá ‘earth’
σσ CVCV áva ‘flying squirrel’
σσ CVCV s ‘tears’
σσ CV:CV róolo ‘urine’
σσ CVVCV táuo ‘tail’
σσ V:CV íiki ‘thatch (thin)’
σσ CVCVG págaj ‘rice’
σσ CVCVG úduj ‘mouth’
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σσσ VCVCV b ‘smoke’
σσσ CVCVCV válisi ‘tooth’
σσσ CVCVCV túburu ‘bamboo shoot’
σσσ CVCVCVG íkulaw ‘leopard’
σσσ VCV:CV okóoo ‘crutch’
σσσ VCV:CV asóoo ‘pestle’
σσσ VCV:CVG abáabaj ‘woman’
σσσ CVCV:CV karáaa ‘pangolin’
σσσ CVCV:CV tsaváai ‘roof’
σσσσ CVCVCVCV gg ‘mountain’
σσσσ VCVCV:CV iss ‘nit’
b. Stress in Suffixed Forms: primary stress falls on the antepenultimate
syllable of each suffixed word3.
Stress Morpheme Suffixation GLOSS
σσσσ kan-ansuffix kanan ‘food’
σσσσ wa-[l -asuffix wala ‘saw’
σσσσ maprefix-[pusa-lsuffix mapúsal ‘twenty’
σσσσσ a-[lb-ansuffix alban ‘to be closed’
σσσσσ sanu-[tuu-lusuffix sanutúulu ‘three times’
σσσσσσ kala-[bts-ansuffix kalabtsan ‘millet festival’
c. Stress in Prefixed or Infixed Forms: primary stress never falls on prefix or
infix morphemes. Stress always falls on roots or stems. Stress falls on 3 Given that the attested monosyllabic roots with long vowels are nouns, no suffixes attach to monosyllabic roots in word level. Primary stress on the heavy penult of the suffixed forms could be presumably possible, but it was not attested in the corpus.
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heavy monosyllabic roots, light or heavy penult of disyllabic roots, heavy
penult or antepenultimate syllable of trisyllabic or longer roots.
Stress Morpheme Prefixation/Infixation GLOSS
σσ waprefix-[p wap ‘to squeeze’
σσσ laprefix-[usa laúsa ‘couple’
σσσ siprefix-ainfix-[titi siatíti ‘to hit’
σσσ tuprefix-ainfix-[saapa tuasáapa ‘to weave a mat’
σσσ tuprefix-ainfix-[matsa tua-mátsa ‘to wash face’
σσσσ waprefix-[tinono watínono ‘to weave’
σσσσ maprefix-[busuku mabúsuku ‘drunk’
σσσσ aprefix-[avats aávats ‘spider’
σσσσ maprefix-aprefix-[limu maalímu ‘muddy’
σσσσσ maprefix-saprefix-[sulap masasúlap ‘smooth’
σσσσσ maprefix-aprefix-[s maas ‘to meet’
σσσσσ laprefix-maprefix-[lalak lamalálak ‘children
σσσσσ iprefix-ainfix-[vlvl iavlvl ‘to move’
σσσσσσ pauprefix-daprefix-[davats paudadávats ‘by walking’
Secondary stress was attested in four-syllable or five-syllable sequences or
words longer than five syllables. Secondary stress falls on remaining heavy
syllables, and on every other light syllable counting from right to the left. Some
examples are illustrated in (46).
(46) Secondary Stress in Budai Rukai
Syllables Budai Word Stress Gloss
σσσσσ lupakavaal lupàkaváal ‘the day after tomorrow’
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σσσσσ taraamar tàraámar ‘one month’
σσσσσ kaikaman kàikaman ‘today’
σσσσσσ kalaktslan kalàktslan ‘winter’
σσσσσσσ tatsktsklan tàtsktsklan ‘family’
σσσσσσσσ kalaaaaan kalàaàáan ‘summer’
The general distribution of Budai Rukai stress is summarized as follows.
Primary stress falls on (i) heavy monosyllabic roots; (ii) the penultimate syllable
of disyllabic roots; (iii) the heavy penult or the antepenultimate syllable of tri-
syllabic or longer roots and suffixed forms. Primary stress always falls on roots
or suffixed forms. Prefixes and infixes are excluded from the domain to which
primary stress can apply. Secondary stress falls on remaining heavy syllables,
and on every other light syllable counting from right to the left.
5.6.2 Stress Patterns in Budai Rukai
Stress patterns in Budai Rukai are quantity-sensitive. Vowel length affects
the assignment of stress in Budai. Mora formalization is considered as part of the
syllable structure assignment. The distinction between light and heavy syllables
is made here for further prosodic analyses and constraints. Since no consonantal
coda is allowed in Budai Rukai, CV syllable is light, whereas CVV syllable is
heavy. Both of the long vowel and the diphthong in the CVV syllable contain two
moras, and the single vowel in the CV syllable consists of one single mora. Mora
formation between light and heavy syllables is shown in (47).
(47) a. Light Syllable: V b. Heavy Syllable: VV, VG, GV
σ σ
µ µ µ
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Main stress in Budai Rukai falls on either the heavy penult or the
antepenult of a word, depending on the weight of the penult. It is apparent that
Budai stress is [+Quantity Sensitive] in the typology of stress. In other words,
syllable weight plays a crucial role in the assignment of stress. Word stress never
falls on the final syllable in Budai Rukai, except a restricted number of heavy
monosyllabic roots. Following Hayes (1995), the traditional symbols macron
/—/ and breve /◡/ designate heavy and light syllables respectively. Stress
patterns are shown below.
(48) Syllable Stress Gloss
a. /◡◡/ s ‘tears’
/◡◡◡ / válisi ‘tooth’
/ ◡◡◡◡/ makáam ‘thirsty’
/ ◡◡◡◡◡/ tàkurápa ‘toad’
/◡◡◡◡◡◡/ sublbl ‘sky’
b. /— ◡/ kúupa ‘to steal’
/ ◡— ◡/ karáaa ‘pangolin’
/◡◡— ◡/ iss ‘nit’
/◡◡◡— ◡/ matsàtsabíiri ‘to fight’
/◡◡◡◡— ◡/ màsamsm ‘dusk’
The data summarized in (48) indicates the extrametricality of the final
syllables in Budai. Hayes (1981) proposes peripherality that a constituent may be
extrametrical only if it is at a designated edge of its domain. Final syllables at the
right edge of a Budai prosodic word are extrametrical. Primary stress occurs
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within the domain of a prosodic word. The analysis of Budai Rukai stress
involves the construction of ordinary moraic trochees. Footing is iterative, and
degenerate feet are allowed only in strong position.
The metrical algorithm set up for Budai Rukai stress is listed in (49).
(49) Stress in Budai Rukai
a. Syllable Extrametricality σ <σ> / ___ ]word
where σ is not a monosyllabic root
b. Foot Construction: Form moraic trochees from right to left
Degenerate feet are permitted only in strong position
c. Word Layer Construction: End Rule Right
x ) x)
(x .) .)(x)
…◡◡<σ> or …◡—<σ>
Words in (50) are generated by the rules shown in (49).
(50) a. (x) b. (x) c. (x) d. ( x)
(x) (x ) (x) (x)
— — <◡> ◡<◡> ◡— <◡>
vái dáan kútsu karáaa
‘sun’ ‘house’ ‘head louse’ ‘pangolin’
e. (x ) f. ( x ) g. ( x)
(x .) (x .) (x .)(x)
◡◡<◡> ◡◡◡<◡> ◡◡ — <◡>
íkats akral iss
‘lightning’ ‘river’ ‘nit’
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Stress in noun phrases follow the rules stated in (49), as long as the lexical
word is a content word. Noun phrases are defined as a domain within which
more than two noun morphemes occur. Budai stress does not fall on construction
markers or construction markers in noun phrases. Examples are given in (51).
(51) a. ( x ) b. ( x)
(x .) (x .)(x .)(x .) (x)
◡◡ ◡<◡> <◡> ◡◡ ◡ ◡ ◡◡ <—>—<—>
la.lá.k.su ku. ka.la.ma.va.u.lu.kua.báa.baj
lalak-su ku#kala-mavaulu# ku#abaabaj
child-2sgGen Lig have eighty Lig woman
‘your child’ ‘eighty-year-old woman’
Long stressed vowels at penultimate position have been widely attested in
Budai Rukai. Long vowels at penult in Budai were also found in Li’s (1977a)
reconstruction study and Zeitoun’s (2000) reference grammar. Note that not all
penultimate vowels are lengthened in Budai Rukai. A cautious examination on
my fieldwork notes and recording has revealed that vowel length contrast is
expressed in penultimate position. When long vowels occur at penult, they get
main stress. Long vowels in the other positions where they do not receive main
stress, they are shortened, as shown in sa-ka-u-daan-an > sakaudanan
‘whole family’ (daan ‘house’) and sa-ka-u-iiri-an > sakauirían ‘whole stalk
of taro plant (iiri ‘stalk of taro plant’). The weight-by-penultimate-position
phenomenon results in the skewed distribution of vowel length contrast and
stress patterns in Budai Rukai.
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Thus far, the analysis provided in this section has shown that Budai stress
is predictable at word level. Word stress in Budai Rukai is predictable, with the
classification of sequences into stems, prefixed, and suffixed words. Syntactic
classes in Budai, as far as I have observed, do not directly affect the assignment
of stress, except construction markers. In Tanan Rukai, stress normally falls on
the last syllable of a noun or verb, according to Li (1973), but shifts to fall on the
personal markers that immediately follow the noun and verb. Final word stress
was not attested in disyllabic or longer sequences in Budai Rukai. Rather, a pitch
accent is imposed on imperatives. More discussion on imperative accent is found
in the next chapter, Chapter 6.
The stress pattern of complex numerals is illustrated in (52). Again,
construction markers cannot be footed in complex numerals, i.e., they are
extrametrical. Only the sequences within the domain of a content word can be
footed and get stress. The content word at the right edge of the complex numeral
gets the primary stress, while the remaining content word(s) may get the
secondary stress.
(52) Stress in complex numerals
a. 26 ( x )
(x .) (x .)
[◡ ◡◡<◡>]W1 <◡>[◡◡<◡>]W2
[[ma-pusa-l]W1 # si # [nma]W2]complex numeral
twenty and six
Output: mapùsalsinma
‘twenty-six’
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b. 97 ( x)
(x .) (x)
[◡ ◡◡<◡>]W1<◡>[◡<◡>]W2
[[ma-baat]W1 # si # [pitu]W2]complex numeral
ninety and seven
Output: mabàatsipítu
‘ninety seven’
As we have seen in section 5.1.2, the number and types of prefixes are
much more than that of suffixes. When prefixes attach to disyllabic roots or stems,
primary stress always falls to the penult of the root or stem. Word stress in Budai
Rukai is predictable, as long as the following factors are taken into account:
syllable weight, syllable number, roots and affixed forms.
5.6.3 Implications for PAN Stress
In this section, I wish to review some of the controversial discussion on
Budai stress and assess if the patterns described in the current study have
implications for the reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian (PAN) stress.
Stress is predictable in Budai. Li (1977a) points out that echo vowels were
added in all Rukai dialects. Antepenultimate stress of Budai Rukai was found in
Li’s (1995) later wordlist, with the statement of falling mostly on the penultimate
syllable, but less frequently on the final or antepenult. The alternative stress
pattern seems to indicate the impact of syllable weight.
Based on Li’s (1977a) data, Ross (1992) states that the oxytones (final stress
patterns) of Budai are apparently the last remnants of PAN contrastive stress.
They generally correspond with Proto-Philippines (PPH) oxytones, and therefore
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presumably reflect PAN oxytones. He further proposes the relationships
between Budai stress and Proto-Philippines (PPH) oxytones, summarized as
follows: (a) where a PAN final consonant is lost in Rukai, the Budai form follows
the normal pattern for vowel-final disyllables, that is, it is paroxytone
(penultimate stress), regardless of whether the PAN form was paroxytone or
oxytone; (b) where a PAN final consonant is retained in Rukai (i) a PAN
paroxytone is normally reflected as a Budai paroxytone; (ii) a PAN oxytone is
reflected, either as a Budai paroxytone or as a Budai oxytone.
Ross (1992) mistakes [-consonantal] glide coda in Li’s (1977a) data as a
consonantal segment in /…C/, and vowel length is not taken into account in his
proposal. But his conclusion on Budai stress is inspiring, stating that “Proto-
Philippines (PPH) paroxytones corresponding only with Budai paroxytones is
evidence that PPH contrastive stress is inherited from PAN”.
Nevertheless, Ross also points out that Budai is in the process of going the
way of the other Rukai dialects, that is, towards phonological predictable stress.
As a result, Budai paroxytones sometimes correspond with PPH paroxytones,
and sometimes with PPH oxytones. According to Ross (1992: 50), Austronesian
languages made use of morphological accent to distinguish word classes, or
lexical subclasses. It is possible that this inherited resource will ultimately be
implicated in the rise of lexical stress contrasts in Philippine languages, and that
the agreement of accent in cognate forms will provide another piece of evidence
for a Philippine subgroup.
Ross’s (1992) argument is somewhat correct in distinguishing
morphological accent, as we have seen that construction markers in Budai Rukai
usually do not bear stress and disyllabic roots or stems retain primary stress. The
syllable weight and quantity-sensitive stress preserved in Budai Rukai seem to
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indicate the existence of the contrastive stress in PAN. However, word stress in
Budai does not distinguish nouns from verbs. The oxytones in Ross’s (1992)
argument should be counted as pragmatic accent in contexts or address forms, as
they have nothing to do with footing and quantity-sensitive parameters.
Li (1977a) is the first one to claim that stress is phonemic in all the dialects
of Rukai except Mantauran. He argues that stress would be predictable in the
dialect of Tanan Rukai, if the final echo vowel is not represented in the phonemic
transcriptions. On the other hand, Li (1973, 1977a) also argues there is little
justification for not representing the echo vowels in the other dialects except for
Tanan. It would be difficult to account for historical derivations of many forms if
the final echo vowels were not treated as phonemic.
Wolff (1993) proposes that PAN roots had a stress contrast in the final two
syllables of the root. In Budai Rukai, however, stress contrast was attested in the
antepenult and the penult of trisyllabic or longer roots, as echo vowels are
represented. On the other hand, Wolff (1993) argues that in PAN the stress
patterns fell on the penult of the root if it was long and on the final syllable of the
root if the penult was short. Although Wolff’s data comprise stress patterns in
Formosa and the Philippines, Budai stress is not depicted clearly. It has been
proved in the current project that vowel length is phonemic in Budai Rukai.
Syllable weight does affect the assignment of stress.
To sum up, stress contrast in Budai is the most interesting point for the
reconstruction of PAN stress. The interaction between phonemic vowel length
and stress provides evidence for the argument of contrastive stress in PAN roots.
Yet, precise transcription and abundant field data from the other dialects of
Rukai are still needed for a further reconstruction of Proto-Rukai stress.
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5.7 Morphophonemics
In this section, two types of morphophonemics are described: alterations
between approximants and fricatives, and reduplication.
5.7.1 Alternations between Glides and Fricatives
The alternations between glides and fricatives have been attested in quite
a few Formosan languages, such as Tsou and Paiwan, and in the other dialects of
Rukai (cf. Li 1974, 1977b). Recall the similar alternation in Paiwan, as shown in
Chapter 2. The alternation between /w/ and /v/ takes place before a morpheme
boundary in Paiwan. Similarly, the glide phoneme /j/ alternates with fricative
// at the designated position with some restrictions in Budai Rukai.
The distribution of the phoneme // in Budai is relatively restricted, as it
occurs before the low vowel /a/ only. Some words containing the phoneme //
and /j/ are given in (53).
(53) Budai Rukai GLOSS Budai Rukai GLOSS
ali ‘Feminine name’ karaa ‘pangolin’
aaaam ‘bird’ aa ‘above’
kavaan ‘type of bamboo’ baa ‘enemy’
kamaja ‘mango’ baju ‘lake’
ja-kai ‘exist’ kuija ‘yesterday’
Shown in (53), the sound [] occurs word-initially and word-medially
before [a] only, whereas the sound [j] occurs word-initially and word-medially
before [a] and word-medially before [u]. The data in (53) have shown that //
and /j/ should be treated as two independent phonemes. There are no
morphemes that have non-alternating stem-final //. However, glide coda /j/
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becomes fricative // when followed by suffixes beginning with a low vowel a
in stem-final position. Examples of morphophonemic alternation between
segments /j/ and // are illustrated in (54).
(54) Stems GLOSS Affixed Forms GLOSS
a. apuj ‘fire’ sa-tu-apu-an ‘material for fire’
b. vaj ‘Budai’ ka-va-an ‘Budai tribe’
c. baj ‘to give’ sa-ba-an ‘wedding gift’
d. umaj ‘to hit’ wa-uma-aku ‘I hit’
e. patsaj ‘to kill’ wa-papatsa-aku ‘I kill’
f. apuj ‘fire’ apuj-ini ‘his fire’
g. patsaj ‘to kill’ papatsaj-a ‘has killed’
h. kaj ‘to hang’ kaj-numi ‘you hang’
The contrastive pairs are found between (54a-e) and (54f-h). Glide /j/
occurs both stem-finally and before suffixes beginning with a consonant or a
high vowel i, whereas fricative // occurs before suffixes beginning with /a/
only, as shown in (54a-e). Given that the forms with j are treated as the base and
those with as the derived, a phonological rule is given as follows.
(55) Alternation between j and : glide /j/ becomes fricative // before a suffix
beginning with /a/ in stem-final position
j / ____ - ⎥⎥⎥
⎦
⎤
⎢⎢⎢
⎣
⎡
+
+
lowsyllcons-
where ‘-’ is a morpheme boundary
It is proposed here that the alternation between glides and fricatives is to
prevent the final glide from forming a diphthong with the following suffix
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beginning with /a/, which may result in a vowel sequence such as /aja/ or
/uja/ at word-medial position. In other words, the phonological formation of
diphthongs across morpheme boundaries is more restricted than within stems or
roots. The syllable shape of GV is more restricted than the canonical CV shape at
word-medial position.
Li (1973) points out the same morphophonemic alternations are common
in Tsou. It is of interest that Tanan Rukai, among the Paiwanic languages, shares
this rule with the Tsouic languages. Though the alternation between j and was
not attested in Paiwan, the alternation pattern between w and v attested in
Paiwan does occur in Budai Rukai, as shown in the followinig words: wa-aaw
‘to wait’ and aav-a ‘Wait!’. It is apparent that Paiwan and Budai Rukai also
share some phonological features.
5.7.2 Reduplication
Reduplication has been briefly discussed in section 5.1.3.2. This section
focuses upon the syllable types of reduplicants and the interaction between
reduplication and stress. Two distinct types of reduplication in Budai Rukai are
described here: root reduplication and Ca-reduplication. Root reduplication
includes lexicalized reduplication, full reduplication and partial reduplication.
Lexicalized reduplication undergoes both CVCV- and Ca-reduplication, whereas
full-reduplication applies to disyllabic stems. On the other hand, Ca-
reduplication comprises one consonant of the base plus a designated vowel –a,
and it must co-occur with a prefix that determines the meaning of the whole
component. As far as semantic functions are concerned, root reduplication
signals the progressive aspect of verbs, intensifies the degree of stative verbs, or
yields a collective denotation. However, most of the plural nouns in Budai Rukai
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are indicated by the prefix la-, rather than full reduplication of stems. Examples
of different types of reduplication are given in this section. Root reduplication is
illustrated in (56) and (57), whereas Ca-reduplication is shown in (58).
(56) Full Reduplication of Root in Budai
i. Lexicalized Reduplication: reduplication of a CVCV-stem is derived from a
bound stem, whose meaning may be unknown. Main stress falls regularly on
the antepenult of the output form, given that no heavy penults are present.
Reduplication Stress Gloss
a. bl-bl blbl ‘banana’
b. r-r rr ‘thunder’
c. g-g gg ‘mountain’
d. lp-lp lplp ‘beans’
e. gats-gats gatsgats ‘to scratch’
f. oro-oro oróoro ‘to push’
g. p-p pp ‘to suck’
h. a-a aa ‘to hurt’
ii. Reduplication of noun or verb stems: reduplication of a full (C)V(C)V-base.
Main stress remains in the disyllabic bases.
Base Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. kán ‘eat’ wa-kanRed-kán ‘to be eating’
b. dá ‘soil’ daRed-dá ‘earth, land’
c. ági ‘younger sibling’ agiRed-ági ‘younger siblings’
d. píi ‘choose’ wa-piiRed-píi ‘to be choosing’
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(57) Partial Reduplication of Root in Budai: reduplicants copy CV or CVCV
syllables from the bases. Main stress remains in the bases of the output.
Reduplicants do not copy vowel sequences or long vowels.
Base Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. míkats ‘blink’ mikaRed-míkats ‘to blink’
b. áai ‘dance’ wa-aaRed-áai ‘to be dancing’
c. káats ‘bite’ wa-kaRed-káats ‘to be biting’
d. dávats ‘walk’ wa-daRed-daRed-dávats ‘to be walking’
e. dáan ‘house’ daRed-dáan ‘small house’
f. pk ‘navel’ pRed-pk ‘lizard’
(58) Ca-Reduplication in Budai: reduplicants copy one consonant of the bases
plus a designated vowel –a, and they usually attach to the left edge of the bases.
Primary stress falls on the bases of the reduplication output. In the following
examples, reduplicants are underlined.
Lexicon Gloss Reduplication Gloss
a. wa-pána ‘to shoot’ ma-paRed-pána ‘to shoot each other’
b. wa-l ‘to see’ wa-aRed-l ‘to look out’
c. wa-pátsaj ‘to die’ i-a-paRed-paRedpátsaj ‘to suicide’
d. wa-túbi ‘to cry’ ma-taRed-túbi ‘to cry to each other’
The regular stress pattern in lexicalized full reduplication indicates the
well-formed property of a prosodic word. Reduplicants do not affect the
assignment of main stress. When reduplicants are treated as prefixed sequences
in full or partial reduplication, stress remains in stems or bases. On the other
hand, reduplicants do not copy the syllable weight of the bases, as shown in (57c),
(57e) and (57f). It is consistent in the Ca-Reduplication cases that reduplicants
266
attach to the left edge of the bases, and the main stress falls to the disyllabic bases.
The prosodic patterns in partial reduplication indicate that primary stress in
Budai Rukai remains in the bases after reduplication.
The syllable structure of a reduplicant plays a crucial role in partial
reduplication. Reduplicants in partial reduplication usually copy CV- or CVCV-
syllables from the bases and attach to the left edge of the bases. This confirms the
general principles of the syllable structure in Budai Rukai that CV is the
canonical syllable type. Reduplicants usually do not copy a heavy syllable from a
CVVCV-base. Reduplication in Budai Rukai preserves full phonological identity
of the base in full reduplication, as it copies the syllable structure of the bases and
the restriction on the syllable types. Loss of syllable weight in reduplicants is due
to the position in the prosodic words. Vowel length contrast is expressed in
penultimate position.
To sum up, reduplication in Budai Rukai generally follows the stress
patterns in roots, stems, and affixed words, but the syllable number and the
syllable types of the bases have to decide the most prominent position for the
primary stress after reduplication.
5.8 Orthography and Transcription
As the Rukai language has been studied in Li (1973, 1975, 1977a, 1977b,
1995), Zeitoun (2000) and Hsin (2000), different orthography systems have been
adopted for different dialects. Hsin’s (2000) phonological study on Maga Rukai
completely follows the IPA transcription, while a Romanized conventional
written system published either by Catholic and Protestant churches or the
county government does not match the principles of syllabic or phonetic
transcription. The different transcription symbols for consonantal phonemes
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attested in Li’s (1995) and Zeioun’s (2000) studies on Budai Rukai, the
Romanized writing system published by the Catholic and Protestant Churches,
and IPA are compared in (59).
(59) The Comparison of Transcription Symbols
Li (1995) Zeitoun (2000) Romanized IPA
p p p p
b b b b
t t t t
d d d d
D [] rh
¢ c c ts
k k k k
g g g g
v v v v
th [] th
z [] z
s s s s
m m m m
n n n n
ng [] ng
l l l l
L [] lh
r r r r
w w w w
y y y y
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Shown in (59), the primary difference of the transcription lies in the
retroflex segments and , the interdental segments and , the affricate ts, and
the velar nasal .
Lately, Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan of Taiwan, has
published a written system (2005) for the Rukai aborigines, as shown in Table
5.10 and Table 5.11. The symbols include the varieties attested in Budai, Tanan,
Labuan, Tona, Mantauran, and Maga Rukai. It has been suggested that the
written system will be popularized among the Rukai aborigines in the future.
Note that the consonantal phoneme /z/ is included in the writing system, as
shown in Table 5.10. However, the sound [z] was attested as an allophone of the
phoneme // and /ts/ or occurring in loans in the current study. The fieldwork
conducted in the current project has revealed that the symbol z should represent
the sound in the speech of Budai Rukai.
Table 5.10: Consonants of the Rukai Written System
(1) Budai Ruaki; (2) Eastern Rukai; (3) Labuan Rukai; (4) Tona Rukai;
(5) Mantauran Rukai; (6) Maga Rukai
Orthographic Symbol
IPA 1 2 3 4 5 6
p p
b b --
t t
d d --
k k
g g --
’ / -- -- -- --
tr ˇ -- -- -- -- --
dr Í --
c ts
v v
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th T --
dh D
s s
z z ( ) ( ) ( )
h h ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
m m
n n
ng N
l l
lr Ò ( )
r r --
w w
y j
Total: 24 24 22 23 22 22 18 22
Table 5.11: Vowels of the Rukai Written System
(1) Budai Ruaki; (2) Eastern Rukai; (3) Labuan Rukai; (4) Tona Rukai;
(5) Mantauran Rukai; (6) Maga Rukai
Orthographic Symbol
IPA 1 2 3 4 5 6
i i
é e -- -- -- -- --
i i -- -- -- -- --
e ´
a a
u u -- -- --
o o -- --
Total: 7 7 4 4 4 4 4 7
Shown in Table 5.11, four orthographic symbols are chosen for Budai
Rukai vowels: i, , a, u. This confirms that only four vowels are attested in Budai
Rukai, and that the sound o is an allophone of the phoneme /u/.
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CHAPTER SIX
PROSODY OF BUDAI RUKAI
This chapter is a brief sketch of the prosodic components of Budai Rukai.
Prosodic aspects of Rukai have rarely been investigated in earlier studies, let
alone sentence-level prosody. In addition to word stress, accent also plays a
crucial role in words or sentence formation. Identical syntactic phrases represent
distinct semantic meanings simply by changing the prosodic components in the
phrases. I have shown different types of prosodic components of Paiwan, such as
pitch accent, intonation, and prosody beyond sentence in Chapter 4. This chapter,
however, focuses upon three major prosodic aspects: stress, pitch accent, and
intonation. The prosodic components of Budai prosody to be described and
analyzed are illustrated in (1).
(1) Prosodic Components of Budai Rukai
Grammar of Budai Rukai
M
Phonological Stress Variation
LEXICAL REPRESENTATION
Accent, Intonation
SURFACE REPRESENTATION
Phonetic Representations of Stress,
Phonetic Implementations of Accent and Intonation
ACOUSTIC SIGNAL
Section 6.1 describes both phonological variation of word stress and
phonetic representations of word stress in Budai Rukai. A list of prosodic words
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with stress variation is compiled for the generalization and the argument for
contact stress patterns. Section 6.2 describes and analyzes two types of word-
level pitch accent in Budai Rukai: regional and imperative. Sentence-level
prosody of intonation and its phonetic representations are found in section 6.3.
6.1 Word Stress of Budai Rukai
Canonical stress patterns in Budai Rukai have been described in Chapter 5.
In tri-syllabic and quadric-syllabic sequences, if the penultimate syllable is light,
main stress falls on the antepenult; if the penultimate syllable is heavy, main
stress falls on the penult. The extrametricality of final syllables has been set up
prior to foot construction of moraic trochees from right to left. In this section,
variation of word stress in Budai Rukai is described. Stress variation was attested
in villages where Budai Rukai speakers have frequent contact with Northern
Paiwan speakers. Section 6.1.1 focuses on the descriptive contact stress patterns
attested in Budai Rukai, and section 6.1.2 provides empirical evidence for the
representations of Budai Rukai stress.
6.1.1 Contact Stress Patterns
As we have seen in Chapter 5 that mutual language contact and frequent
intertribal marriage have been attested in the newly settlements, such as the
villages in the Majia township, Rukai speakers in the Southern Sanhe Village are
able to speak the Paiwan language and communicate with Northern Paiwan
speakers. Although influence from Paiwan is inevitable, Budai is considered the
most representative Rukai dialect, according to Li’s (1995) observation.
Nevertheless, it was found in my fieldwork that Budai speakers who live in the
Southern Sanhe Village or have frequent contact with the Paiwan speakers tend
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to produce the Paiwan stress patterns. It was also found that some middle-aged
Rukai speakers who live in the Budai Village and have contact with Paiwan
speakers have acquired a Paiwan type of stress patterns in their Rukai speech.
In the Southern Sanhe Village, Budai Rukai speakers can produce both
Rukai and Paiwan stress patterns, and either stress pattern is acceptable. In the
mountain area Budai and Haocha Villages, however, canonical Rukai stress
patterns are retained in older speaker’s utterance. The following data of contact
stress patterns were drawn from a middle-aged informant, who was born and
raised in the mountain Budai Village and has frequent contact with Northern
Paiwan speakers. In his elicitation tokens, word stress usually falls to the penult
of the tri-syllabic and quadric-syllabic words, regardless of the quantity of the
penultimate vowels. In words longer than five syllables, the final schwa is
extremely weak in his utterance, sometimes hard to perceive. Canonical Budai
stress patterns were not completely lost in his Rukai speech, as they were
attested in natural discourse or longer utterances. The contact stress patterns are
shown in (2).
(2) a. Three-syllable words
Budai Stress Stress Variation GLOSS
válisi valísi ‘tooth’
b b ‘smoke’
túburu tobóro ‘bamboo shoot’
vágisi vagísi ‘thigh’
k k ‘buttocks’
ápas apás ‘crab’
úbulu ubúlu ‘grass’
tínono tinóno ‘to weave’
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láts lats ‘vegetables’
b. Four-syllable words
Budai Stress Stress Variation GLOSS
rr rr ‘thunder’
‘tender’
c. Five-syllable words
Budai Stress Stress Variation GLOSS
aagl aagl ‘fly’
takurápa takurapá ‘toad’
kalapúsan kalapusán ‘autumn’
Shown in (2), antepenultimate stress in three-syllable, four-syllable, and
five-syllable Budai words shifts to the penultimate position in stress variation.
The pattern in variation violates the general principle of Budai stress: if the
penultimate syllable is light, main stress falls on the antepenult. It is apparent
that extrametricality in Budai stress is violated in the pattern of variation. Note
that the pattern was attested in the speech of the Budai speakers who have
contact with the Northern Paiwan speakers. It occurs in elicitation or narrative.
Antepenultimate stress becomes penultimate stress in prosodic words, with the
release from extrametricality. The contact stress pattern is formulated in (3).
(3) Release from Extrametricality:
(x) (x)
…◡◡<◡ > …◡◡◡
There are some cognates shared by both Northern Paiwan and Budai
Rukai, as they have been so close to each other geographically, but the semantic
274
meaning of some cognates may transform from one language to the other.
Examples of cognates with stress assignment are given in (4).
(4) Budai Rukai Northern Paiwan1 GLOSS
a. tsáki tsái ‘excrement’
b. válisi ális ‘tooth’
c. luá uá ‘cattle’
d. káats k-m-áts ‘to bite’
e. kán k-m-án ‘to eat’
f. kuá kuá ‘gun’
g. kútsu kútsu ‘head louse’
h. s s ‘tears’
i. láts láts ‘vegetables’
j. máatsa mátsa ‘eye’
k. págaj pádaj ‘rice’
l. paúal paúal ‘pineapple’
m. isíisi ísis ‘beard’
n. atsíilaj ‘water’ atsíaj ‘stone’
o. pd púu ‘kidney’
p. áaj átsaj ‘liver’
q. údal údal ‘rain’
r. údas údas ‘white hair’
s. ápuj sápuj ‘fire’
1 As we have seen in Chapter 2, main stress in Paiwan falls on the second-right or the rightmost syllable of each prosodic word, in which prefixes and infixes are excluded from the domain of a prosodic word. Penultimate schwa nucleus does not affect the stress assignment in Northern Paiwan.
275
t. tátsu tátsu ‘clothing louse’
u. túla túla ‘eel’
v. kúuu kú ‘skirt’
w. báali váli ‘board’
x. áva áva ‘flying squirrel’
y. bábuj vávuj ‘boar’
z. bitsúuka vitsúka ‘stomach’
Shown in (4), both segments and stress patterns in the cognates are very
similar to each other, especially in two-syllable cognates. Because of the cognates
shared with Northern Paiwan, and because of being surrounded by the Northern
Paiwan speakers in the plain areas, stress patterns in Budai Rukai were affected
by Northern Paiwan stress.
6.1.2 Phonetic Representations of Budai Stress
As we have noted in Chapter 5, vowel length does affect the assignment of
stress in Budai Rukai (§ 5.6.1). Budai Rukai has a quantity-sensitive stress system.
In this section, an attempt is made to sketch how Budai stress is represented in
terms of its phonetic correlates. On the other hand, it has been observed that final
lengthening may occur in Paiwan to mask the phonetic correlate of stressed
vowels. I have argued that phonological long vowel contrast occurs at
penultimate position in Budai Rukai, but whether or not phonetic final
lengthening occurs in Budai needs to be examined here. In the following
instrumental studies, three major correlates, vowel length, pitch, and intensity
are to be measured in stressed and unstressed vowels of Budai Rukai, and vowel
length of the final syllables and the penultimate syllables is also investigated.
276
The measured tokens were drawn from male informants who did not show
stress variation in their utterances. As consonants may affect the duration of their
following vowels, consonants preceding stressed and unstressed vowels are
controlled. In addition, vowel quality such as low or high is controlled, as it may
affect the pitch realization of stress. Stressed low and high vowels are compared
with unstressed low and high vowels respectively. As a result, only the following
tokens are eligible for measurements, as shown in (5). Four types of
measurement were distinguished for comparison: stressed penult and unstressed
final (Type I), stressed antepenult and unstressed penult (Type II), stressed
antepenult and unstressed final (Type III), stressed antepenult and unstressed
initial (Type IV). Measured syllables in bold are compared.
(5) Budai Rukai Measured syllables (in bold) GLOSS
a. káka káka (Type I) ‘elder siblings’
b. rúulu rúulu (Type I) ‘urine’
c. pk pk (Type I) ‘navel’
d. túuku túuku (Type I) ‘chest’
e. tapk tapk (Type II) ‘few (people)
f. aáam aáam (Type II) ‘bird’
g. atsktsk atsktsk (Type III) ‘to stand’
h. aalgl aalgl (Type III) ‘fly’
i. bilíbili bilíbili (Type III) ‘to pull’
j. blbl blbl (Type III) ‘banana’
k. varúguru varúguru (Type III) ‘boat’
l. pklan pklan (Type IV) ‘few (things)’
m. vaválak vaválak (Type IV) ‘children’
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n. óodo óodo (Type IV) ‘hole (on the wall)’
A total of 28 elicitation tokens (14 X 2 speakers) from two male speakers of
Budai Rukai were measured. The tokens were recorded in continuous elicitation,
one repetition per item. A very short pause was inserted between items. None of
the word-final vowels were also phrase-final. Tokens recorded from the female
speakers were excluded from the measurements due to sudden background
noise. Vowel durations of the target syllables were measured from 300 Hz
bandwidth spectrograms, including the portion from the burst of the initial
consonant to the cessation of high frequency energy. An estimate of the value of
the first formant was done, and the fundamental frequency at the midpoint of
each vowel was also measured. Vowel length of stressed non-final vowels (i.e.,
stressed penults or antepenults) and unstressed final vowels were measured to
examine the effect of final lengthening or shortening, and stressed penults were
measured to see if phonological long vowel contrast at penultimate position has
its corresponding phonetic representation. Due to the limited number of the
tokens, no statistical test was conducted to show the significant difference
between the groups. The results of stressed and unstressed contrast are
illustrated in Figure 6.1, Figure 6.2, Figure 6.3 and Figure 6.4. Each bar in the
figures represents the group mean.
Shown in Figure 6.1, stressed penultimate vowels always have longer
vowel duration and higher pitch than unstressed final vowels, whereas not much
intensity difference was found between stressed and unstressed vowels. Final
lengthening does not seem to occur in Budai Rukai, as unstressed final vowels
are much shorter than stressed penultimate vowels.
278
Comparison of Type I
233
158147
10493 92
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Stressed Penult Unstressed Final
Vowel Length (msec)Pitch (Hz)Intensity (dB)
Figure 6.1: Comparison of Stressed Penult and Unstressed Final
On the other hand, three out of four measured words of Type I are with
penultimate long vowels. The ratio contrast of the phonetic vowel length means
between long vowels and short vowels is given in (6).
(6) Budai Words Stressed Penult: Unstressed Final (ratio)
káka 1.08 : 1
rúulu 1.27 : 1
pk 1.81 : 1
túuku 2.08 : 1
The comparison of vowel length shown in (6) provides evidence for the
description and perception of long vowels in Budai, for the duration of stressed
long vowels at penult may be as long as 2.08 times maximum that of unstressed
short vowels at final. In words with short vowels at both penult and final, such
as káka ‘elder siblings’, pitch becomes a robust cue for stress, because vowel
length between stressed and unstressed syllables did not show much difference.
279
Stressed long vowels at penult show not only much longer vowel length but also
higher pitch than unstressed short vowels. The phonetic representation of vowel
length supports the observation on the vowel contrast at penultimate position.
Comparison of Type II
160139133
10593 92
0
50
100
150
200
250
Stressed Antepenult Unstressed Penult
Vowel Length (msec)
Pitch (Hz)
Intensity (dB)
Figure 6.2: Comparison of Stressed Antepenult and Unstressed Penult
Shown in Figure 6.2, stressed antepenultimate syllables have longer vowel
duration and higher pitch than unstressed penultimate syllables, but the
difference of vowel length between stressed and unstressed syllables is not as
much as that of Type I, stressed penult and unstressed final. The mean duration
of stressed vowels at antepenult is only 1.15 times that of unstressed vowels at
penult. In other words, vowel lengthening does not seem to occur at stressed
antepenultimate position.
Shown in Figure 6.3, stressed antepenultimate syllables have slightly
longer vowel duration but much higher pitch and greater amplitude than
unstressed final syllables. On the other hand, stressed antepenultimate syllables
have longer vowel duration and higher pitch than unstressed initial syllables, as
280
shown in Figure 6.4. Unstressed initial syllables tend to have higher pitch than
unstressed penultimate and final syllables.
Comparison of Type III
107 103
144
8593 89
0
50
100
150
200
Stressed Antepenult Unstressed Final
Vowel Length (msec)Pitch (Hz)Intensity (dB)
Figure 6.3: Comparison of Stressed Antepenult and Unstressed Final
Comparison of Type IV
155
109
146128
93 92
0
50
100
150
200
Stressed Antepenult Unstressed Initial
Vowel Length (msec)Pitch (Hz)Intensity (dB)
Figure 6.4: Comparison of Stressed Antepenult and Unstressed Initial
281
It is quite clear from the figures that pitch is the most robust phonetic
correlate in Budai stress, as more differences were observed between stressed
and unstressed syllables in different types of syllable and position-in-word.
Phonetic correlate of vowel length is somewhat sensitive to position-in-word, as
it is prominent at penult but not as much prominent at antepenult. It is apparent
that higher pitch is always associated with stressed syllables in Budai Rukai,
whereas vowel length is subject to its position in words. Phonetic correlate of
amplitude is more prominent in Type III, stressed antepenult and unstressed
final, but not elsewhere. Long vowel contrast at penultimate position was
verified, while neither final lengthening nor shortening was attested in the
measurements.
The robust correlate of pitch in Budai Rukai stress is also supported by the
pitch tracks of stress variation tokens, as shown in Figure 6.5.
Figure 6.5: Pit
1: b 2: va gí si 3: u bú lu
1
23
ch tracks of three stress variation tokens in Budai Rukai
282
The voice tokens were recorded from a middle-aged male Budai speaker
who lived in the Northern Paiwan village for a long time. The tokens for pitch
tracks were b ‘smoke’, vagísi ‘thigh’ and ubúlu ‘grass’. The F0 peak in these
tokens falls to the penult, rather than the antepenult. Nevertheless, no long
vowels occur at penult to trigger penultimate stress. Peak prominence in the
pitch tracks verifies the presence of phonological stress variation in these tokens.
The preliminary measurements made here are to support the description
in the previous chapter. Much more empirical studies are still needed for the
investigation of the correlation between stress and its phonetic representations.
6.2 Word-Level Pitch Accent in Budai Rukai
Ross (1992: 50) reexamines Li’s (1977a) data of Budai Rukai and states that
the final stress of Budai is apparently the last remnants of PAN contrastive stress.
Final stress was not attested in Budai Rukai in the current study. Rather, pitch
accent captures the grammar of Budai imperatives and the face-to-face discourse
context in which both speakers and listeners have to participate. Therefore, the
imperative accent was not counted as a word stress here. In this section, two
types of pitch accent are described. Section 6.2.1 depicts regional pitch accent
attested in Budai Rukai, and section 6.2.2 provides a phonological account for the
imperative accent of Budai Rukai.
6.2.1 Regional Pitch Accent
It has been reported in the current project that Budai Rukai is a stress
language (§5.6). However, it was also reported by the informants that Budai
Rukai has its regional accent. I have observed that those who live in the
mountain area have their “Budai mountain accent”, characterized by a High-Low
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falling tone, like the fourth tone (HL) in Mandarin, according to the informant’s
interpretation. Those who live in the plain area, however, might have lost their
original mountain tone. A cautious examination on the Budai prosodic words
has revealed that the so-called regional accent is a type of pitch accent imposed
on long vowels, not short vowels. In other words, the pitch accent is predictable.
The melody is always aligned with penultimate long vowels. As we have seen in
Chapter 5, vowel length contrast is expressed at penult (§ 5.6.2). There is usually
one long vowel in a word, and the long vowel occurs at penult. A few prosodic
words produced by a female speaker in elicitation with regional accent are
illustrated in (7).
(7) a. Pitch accent on long vowels
Budai Rukai Lexical Accent GLOSS
túuku tú u ku ‘chest’
H L
óoo ó o o ‘marrow’
H L
pk p k ‘navel’
H L
b. Pitch accent on short vowels
Budai Rukai Lexical Accent GLOSS
kútsu kútsu ‘head louse’
H
tátsu tátsu ‘clothing louse’
H
Shown in (7), the first mora of the long vowel is aligned with a high pitch
tone, while the second mora is aligned with a low tone. The two accented moras
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composite is the native “Budai mountain accent”, termed regional accent HL
here. Lexical pitch accent consists of an independent and specific F0 pattern
(Remijsen 2003). A pitch track of the prosodic word túuku ‘chest’ is illustrated in
Figure 6.6.
tú u k u peak
trough
Figure 6.6: Pitch track of the regional accent HL in túuku ‘chest’
On the other hand, not every stressed vowel is aligned with HL lexical
pitch accent. Stressed short vowels are aligned with a high tone only, as shown in
(7b). Regional accent HL has become another index for the distinction between
long and short vowels in prosodic words of Budai Rukai.
As for the genesis of the tonality in Budai, I interviewed two female
speakers ages over eighty in the mountain Budai Village. Both of them could
speak neither Mandarin nor Japanese, and they did not speak or understand the
Paiwan language either, but they had very strong and frequent regional
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mountain accent HL in their Rukai speech. In fact, most of the older speakers in
the Budai mountain area still hold the HL falling tone, but those who are
younger, living in the plain area, and having frequent contact with outsiders may
lose this type of pitch accent in their utterances.
6.2.2 Imperative Pitch Accent
The imperative structure in Budai Rukai is formed by adding a vocalic
morpheme –a to the right edge of a verb stem. If the preceding stem ends with an
echo vowel, the echo vowel must be deleted before the imperative formation, i.e.,
elision occurs before suffixation. Some examples already shown in Chapter 5 are
repeated here in (8).
(8) Agent Focus GLOSS Imperative GLOSS
wa-uulu ‘to drink’ uul-a ‘Drink!’
wa-lb ‘to close’ lb-a ‘Close!’
b. Agent Focus GLOSS Imperative GLOSS
wa-kan ‘to eat’ kan-a ‘Eat!’
wa-pii ‘to choose’ pii-a ‘Choose!’
Following the canonical stress patterns in Budai Rukai, stress falls on the
antepenultimate syllable if no long vowels occur at penult. However, the peak
prominence attested in the imperative structure is aligned regularly with the
penult, regardless of the quantity of the vowels. Echo vowels are not real vowels
and do not count for stress, while the vowels in suffixation do count for stress. A
few verb examples are illustrated in (9). In the following examples, ‘H’ indicates
a phonetic pitch peak.
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(9) Budai Verbs Imperative Verbs GLOSS
a. úulu uula ‘Drink!’
H H
b. káats kaatsa ‘Bite!’
H H
c. ámts amtsa ‘Bring’
H H
d. ásipi asipa ‘Count!’
H H
e. bilíbili bilibíla ‘Pull!’
H H
f. dúkuu dukua ‘Throw!’
H H
g. laválava lavalava ‘Try!’
H H
h. ápal apala ‘Wash (foot)!’
H H
i. páitsi paitsa ‘Turn (around)!’
H H
j. dávats davatsa ‘Walk!’
H H
Imperative accent is not sensitive to vowel quantity. In the two-syllable
word, both pitch peaks in the verb and the imperative are aligned with the
stressed syllables, as shown in (9b). In three-syllable or four-syllable words, on
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the other hand, word stress falls to the antepenultimate syllable, whereas the
pitch peaks in the imperatives are aligned with the penultimate syllables. Peak
alignment with the penult in imperatives is counted as imperative pitch accent.
Imperative pitch accent in Budai occurs regularly at the penult, regardless
of the number of the syllables in the imperative verbs. It would be odd if the
imperative accent were treated as word stress. The final syllable is always
extrametrical in canonical Budai stress, and most of the penultimate vowels in
these prosodic words shown in (9) are short. Regular foot construction to form
moraic trochees does not occur in the imperatives. It is not proper yet to propose
word stress shift, because the shift does occur in the other similar phonological
environments. Suffixation does not change the canonical stress patterns in words,
for example, the antepenultimate stress in words kan-an ‘food’, alb-an ‘to
be closed’ and kala-bts-an ‘millet festival’. A proper analysis is to treat the
pitch accent in the imperative construction as a phonetic implementation of the
syntactic structure or grammar category, taking place between lexical and
surface representations in the grammar of Budai Rukai.
6.3 Intonational Phonology of Budai Rukai
I have shown that identical syntactic phrases can represent distinct
semantic meanings in Paiwan, a declarative denotation and a yes-no question,
simply by the alignment of a high tone and a low tone at the right edge of an
intonational phrase. To better capture the typology of intonational phonology in
Budai Rukai, a set of contrastive syntactic phrases was investigated. The
intonation types are described in terms of peak alignments and prosodic features.
The prosodic domain of intonational phrases (IPs) consists of at least one
prosodic word. The immediate constituents of an intonational phrase must form
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a sense unit. The most distinctive feature in the intonational phonology of Budai
Rukai is the degree of peak prominence at the penultimate or antepenultimate
position of an IP, depending on the quantity of the penultimate syllable of the
prosodic word at the right edge of the IP. If the penult of the rightmost word is
heavy, peak prominence occurs at the penultimate syllable of the IP; if the penult
of the rightmost word is light, peak prominence occurs at the antepenultimate
syllable of the IP. Both declarative sentences and yes/no questions are aligned
with a low tone at their right edge of intonational phrases. However, the penult,
the second right edge syllable of an intonational phrase, or the antepenult, the
third right edge syllable, is aligned with a high tone. The distinction between
declarative intonation and yes/no intonation in Budai Rukai is the alignment of
upstepped high accent or downstepped high accent. Upstepped high accent
refers to an F0 peak that is raised relative to a preceding high accent peak, i.e., it
is the most significant peak prominence in an intonational phrase. On the other
hand, downstepped high accent refers to an F0 peak that is relative lowered to a
preceding high accent peak. Yes-no questions in Budai are aligned with
upstepped high accent at their second-right or third-right edge, depending on
the quantity of the penultimate syllables of the IPs, whereas declarative sentences
are aligned with downstepped high accent at the same positions.
In the IPs of Budai Rukai, yes-no questions always have higher peak and
overall wider pitch range than declarative sentences. Upstepped high accent
always has higher pitch peak than downstepped high accent within the domain
of an IP. A pair of contrastive IPs with identical syntactic form is shown in (10).
(10) a. ka-la-su talialaalaj
Nom.vis-he chieftain
‘He is a chieftain.’
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b. ka-la-su talialaalaj
Nom.vis-he chieftain
‘Is he a chieftain?’
Sentences in (10a) and (10b) have identical lexical representations, but the
alignment of intonational accent differentiates one from the other. Pitch tracks of
the two sentences are illustrated in Figure 6.7. The pitch track of the declarative
intonation is represented as the solid line, whereas the pitch track of the yes/no
question intonation is represented as the dashed light line.
ka la su ta lia laa laj H
DoDe
Figure 6.7: Pitch tracks of Budai declarative
Shown in Figure 6.7, both declarative
initial peak at the second syllable la of th
second-right edge syllable laa of the phra
upstepped high accent is above 160Hz, hig
peak, while the F0 peak of the downstepped
than its preceding high accent peak. Moreove
290
H
wnsteclarat
and i
and i
e phr
se. H
her t
high
r, the
Upstepped Yes/No-Q
pped ive
nterrogative ‘he is a chieftain’
nterrogative sentences have an
ase, and another peak at the
owever, the F0 peak of the
han its preceding high accent
accent is around 100Hz, lower
interrogative yes-no question
has wider pitch range of 72Hz, whereas the declarative sentence has narrower
pitch range of 53 Hz. Both of the sentences end with a low tone at their right edge
of intonational phrases.
More minimal pairs of intonational phrases (IPs) are given in (11)-(12). In
these pairs, syntactic phrases are numbered as letters, whereas their prosodic
intonational representations are marked with diacritics. For example, a’ is the
prosodic representation of the syntactic phrase a.
(11) a. Syntactic Phrase
ku tara-m-vaulu ku abaabaj tara-nm-lalak-ini
Nom.invis AF-eighty Lig woman AF-six-child-Gen.3sg
‘The eighty-year-old woman has six children.’
a’ Intonation Representation
ku tara-m-vaulu ku abaabaj tara-nm-lalak-ini
H H L
Downstepped Peak b. Syntactic Phrase
ku tara-m-vaulu ku abaabaj tara-nm-lalak-ini
Nom.invis AF-eighty Lig woman AF-six-child-Gen.3sg
‘Does the eighty-year-old woman have six children?’
b’ Intonation Representation
ku tara-m-vaulu ku abaabaj tara-nm-lalak-ini
H H L
Upstepped Peak
Shown in (11), upstepped and downstepped pitch peaks capture the
prosodic distinction between the declarative and the yes-no syntactic phrases.
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(12) a. Syntactic Phrase
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj maarili
Nom.3sg.vis AF-eighty Lig year Lig woman pretty
‘The eighty-year-old woman is pretty.’
a’ Intonation Representation
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj maarili
H H L
Downstepped Peak b. Syntactic Phrase
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj maarili
Nom.3sg.vis AF-eighty Lig year Lig woman pretty
‘Is the eighty-year-old woman pretty?’
b’ Intonation Representation
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj maarili
H H H L
Upstepped Peak In the example of (12b’), a pitch peak occurs at the end of the word tsaili
‘year’. Intonational peak at sentence-medial position in Budai Rukai usually
signals the presence of more than one prosodic word in the sentence, followed by
a short pause, whereas the rightmost edge of the IP is aligned with a low tone to
signal the end of the sentence.
(13) Syntactic Phrase
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj ja-i-maarili ja-i-si-a-an
Nom.3sg.vis AF-eighty Lig year Lig woman AF-pretty AF-yet
‘Is the eighty-year-old woman pretty or ugly?’
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Intonation Representation
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj ja-i-maarili ja-i-sian
H H H H L
Upstepped Peak Shown in (13), the content words maarili ‘pretty’ and the alternative
word si-a-an ‘yet’ are aligned with upstepped pitch peaks at their third-right
edge, the antepenultimate position of the prosodic words. Prosodic
representations of alternative questions in Budai Rukai are characterized by
upstepped pitch peaks on the alternative words and a low boundary tone at the
right edge of the IPs.
Thus far, the prosodic features of the declarative and interrogative IPs
have been investigated. The distinctive features between declarative and
interrogative phrases in Budai Rukai are summarized as follows: (i) the
alignments of the upstepped peak or downstepped peak at the second or third-
right edge of an intonational phrase, depending on the quantity of the
penultimate syllables of the rightmost words; (ii) overall higher pitch; (iii) wider
pitch range. The intonation template of Budai Rukai is somewhat similar to the
contrast between declarative sentences and yes-no questions in Paiwan, when
extrametricality is taken into account. Peak alignment in Paiwan yes-no
questions is at the rightmost edge, whereas the peak is aligned with the second
or third-right edge of yes-no questions in Budai Rukai. It is apparent that
extrametricality plays a crucial role in the intonational phonology of Budai Rukai.
The similarity between Budai Rukai and Paiwan yes-no IPs is illustrated in (14).
(14) a. Yes-no Intonational Phrases (IPs) in Budai Rukai
Upstepped Peak
[(…………..…<.>)IP]IP-yes/no interrogative
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b. Yes-no Intonational Phrases (IPs) in Paiwan
Peak
[ (………..………..)IP] IP-yes/no interrogative
In Paiwan, yes-no interrogative sentences end with a high pitch peak,
while the yes-no questions in Budai Rukai end with a low tone, with a up-
stepped pitch peak occurring at the second-right heavy or third-right light
syllable of the IPs.
Are all the interrogative sentences in Budai Rukai aligned with an
upstepped peak at their second or third-right edge of the IPs? For instance, are all
the WH-questions in Budai Rukai aligned with a pitch peak at the second-right
heavy or third-right light syllable of the IPs? There are some WH-words in Budai
Rukai, such as anan ‘who’, manman ‘what’, inu ‘where’, ainu ‘which’, kuigan
‘when (past)’, luigan ‘when (future)’ tapia ’how many (+human)’, piia ‘how
many (-human)’, a- ‘why’. In the following examples, intonation of WH-
Questions is illustrated. WH-words are underlined. Again, a’ is the prosodic
intonation representation of the syntactic phrase a.
(15) a. Syntactic Phrase
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj si-a-anan?
Nom.3sg.vis AF-eighty Lig year Lig woman AF.Poss-who
‘What is the eighty-year-old woman’s name?’
a’ Intonation Representation
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaiili ka abaabaj si-a-anan?
H H H L
Downstepped Peak
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b. Syntactic Phrase
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj ja-inu?
Nom.3sg.vis AF-eighty Lig year Lig woman AF-where
‘Where is the eighty-year-old woman?’
b’ Intonation Representation
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaiili ka abaabaj ja-inu?
H H H L
Downstepped Peak
c. Syntactic Phrase
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj tapia ku lalak-ini?
Nom.3sg.vis AF-eighty Lig year Lig woman how many Lig child-Gen.3sg
‘How many children does the eighty-year-old woman have?’
c’ Intonation Representation
kuini tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj tapi a ku lalak-ini?
H L H L
Downstepped Peak
It is apparent that WH-Questions in Budai end with a low boundary tone
at their right edge, with downstepped peaks aligned with the WH-words. Shown
in (15c’), a pitch through occurs at the end of the word abaabaj ‘woman’. The
low tone may be placed sentence-medially to signal the end of an internal
intonational phrase, followed by a short pause.
d. Syntactic Phrase
tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj u-daan luigan?
AF-eighty Lig year Lig woman AF-house when.future
‘When will the eighty-year-old woman go home?’
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d’ Intonation Representation
tara-m-vaulu ka tsaili ka abaabaj u-daan luigan?
H H L
Downstepped Peak
The examples of WH-Questions in (15) have shown that downstepped
peaks are aligned with the second or third-right edge of the WH-words,
regardless of the position of the WH-words within the IPs. In other words, the
prosodic representations of WH-Questions are different from those of yes-no
questions in Budai Rukai.
All the interrogative sentences in Budai Rukai end with a low boundary.
The major difference between yes-no questions and WH-Questions is the
alignment with different degree of peak prominence, i.e., upstepped high tone in
yes-no questions and downstepped high tone in WH-questions. The intonational
boundary tones of WH-questions are very similar to those of declarative
sentences in Budai Rukai, but the position of downstepped peak alignment
within the domain of the WH-Questions is consistently at the WH-words.
The typological description of interrogative intonation in Budai Rukai is
summarized in (16).
(16) a. Types of questions aligned with upstepped peak prominence at second or
third-right edge of the IP:
(i) Yes/No: ‘Is the eighty-year-old woman pretty?’
(ii) Alternative: ‘Is the eighty-year-old woman pretty or ugly?’
b. Types of questions aligned with downstepped peak prominence at second
or third-right edge of WH-words (Where, When, What, Who, How, Why):
WH-Questions
The contrast between yes-no questions and WH-questions is given in (17).
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(17) a. Syntactic Phrase Prosodic Representation
a-pia-kan-su manman a’ a-pia-kan-su manman
AF-like-eat.Nom.2sg what H H L
‘What do you like to eat?’ Downstepped Peak
b. Syntactic Phrase Prosodic Representation
a-pia-kan-su tai b’ a-pia-kan-su tai
AF-like-eat.Nom.2sg taro H L
‘Do you like to eat taro?’ Upstepped Peak
Negation in Budai Rukai has the type of intonation similar to declarative
IPs, except its initial boundary high tone at the left edge of the IP. A pitch track of
the imperative negation ara si-asipi ‘don’t count!’ is illustrated in Figure 6.8.
Figur
ara si-a si pi
HIGH
LOW
e 6.8: Pitch track of the imperative negation ara si-asipi
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Shown in Figure 6.8, the negation word ara ‘not’ at the initial position of
the IP triggers a high boundary tone at its left edge, and the IP ends with a low
boundary tone at its right edge, the end of the imperative negation.
In summary, intonation in Budai Rukai has been categorized into two
types, with an upstepped pitch peak and a downstepped pitch peak. Types of
interrogative sentences with upstepped peak alignment at their second or third-
right edge of IPs include yes-no questions and alternative questions. WH-
Questions are characterized by the alignment of downstepped peak prominence
at its second or third-right edge of WH-words. Both declarative and negation
sentences have a low boundary tone, but the IPs with negation words at their
initial position are aligned with a high boundary tone at their left edge of the IPs.
On the other hand, the transparency2 of syllable extrametricality is verified in the
intonational phonology of Budai Rukai. Pitch accent or any peak prominence is
never aligned with the right edge of any prosodic words or intonational phrases
in Budai Rukai, except a restricted number of heavy monosyllabic roots.
The chapter has provided a description and analysis of three major types
of Budai prosody: stress variation, word-level prosody, and sentence-level
prosody. Phonetic implementations of upstepped and downstepped high tones
and low tones are important indices for the prosodic representations of Budai
Rukai. Prosodic variation, accent and intonation have been successfully modeled
in terms of the f0 realization.
2 The rule of syllable extrametricality built up prior to foot construction is transparent in the sense that it states a generalization that holds over the phonetic representation (cf. Kenstowicz 1994). Oppositely, opacity refers to the phenomenon that output forms are shaped by generalizations that are not surface-true.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PAIWAN AND BUDAI RUKAI
The majority of comparative studies on languages aim to serve for the
historical reconstruction of the proto-languages. As the classification of
Formosan languages has been an issue, I wish to make a connection between
linguistic characteristics and the historical development, to draw out the
implications of the findings in the current project for the theories of Paiwan and
Budai Rukai linguistic prehistory from the Proto-Austonesian (PAN) stage to the
present. An attempt is made to support the idea that the common innovations
shared by Paiwan and Budai Rukai are due to recent contact, and the evidence
from synchronic linguistic features, cognates, and loans are also presented.
Formosan languages have been generally classified into Atayalic, Tsouic
and Paiwanic on lexical and syntactic grounds (Dyen 1963, 1965; Ferrell 1969).
The Ataylic subgroup includes Atayal and Sediq; the Tsouic subgroup includes
Tsou, Kanakanavu and Saaroa; and the Paiwanic includes all the rest. The Rukai
language belongs to the Paiwanic in the classification. Ferrell (1969) further
subdivided Paiwanic into two branches, Paiwanic I and Paiwanic II. According
to Ferrell’s (1980) elucidation, Paiwanic is a ‘nongroup’ comprised of all
Formosan languages not falling into the other two subgroups. Later, Blust (1996)
has pointed out that the term ‘Paiwanic’ was more a temporary convenience than
the label for a defended hypothesis about linguistic history.
Tsuchida (1976) proposes the hypothesis of Tsouic and Rukai as a
subgroup, as shown in Figure 7.1. Ferrell (1980) further points out that Tsouic
and Rukai tend to split and merge in the same direction. Both Tsouic and Rukai
show very complex reflexes of PAN segments, and the phonological complexities
299
of Tsouic and Rukai require careful studies in the future (cf. Ferrell, 1980). On
the other hand, Ho (1983) argues that Rukai had a closer genetic relationship
with the Paiwanic rather than with the Tsouic languages, after the examination
of fourteen phonological and syntactic features among Formosan languages.
Tsouic
Tsouic Rukai
Tsou Southern Tsou
Kanakanavu Saaroa
Figure 7.1: Tsuchida’s (1976) proposal of the genetic relationship between
Rukai and Tsou
Although Ferrell (1969) expressed his reservation about the reality of
Paiwanic as a genetic unit, his tripartite classification of the Formosan languages
has served as a convenient model until 1990. Li (1990) proposes a comprehensive
subgrouping of the extant Formosan languages. The classification of Southern
Formosan languages in Li’s (1990) conclusion is illustrated in Figure 7.2.
Southern Formosan Languages
Tsouic Puyuma Paiwan Rukai Amis Kavalan Thao Bunun
Figure 7.2: A Classification of Southern Formosan Languages (After Li 1990)
300
One of the big advances in Li’s (1990) classification is to give many Formosan
languages independent branches, separating from the traditional Atayalic,
Tsouic and Paiwanic. His method helps us diagnose some of the borrowings that
must have affected Rukai and Tsouic. Li (1990) points out that it makes a real
difference in classification whether we treat Rukai as a single language or not.
Rukai is more closely related to Paiwan when only Budai Rukai is represented, as
geographically adjacency is another factor that affects the number of cognates
shared by each pair of languages. Li (1990) also admits that Ruaki has also been
geographically located close to the Tsouic languages, for instance, a lot of
borrowing between Mantauran Rukai and Saaroa of the Tsouic. Hsin (2000)
conducts a phonological study of Maga Rukai and observes that Tsou and Maga
Rukai display many common features. On the other hand, Li (1990) also agrees
that it is sometimes difficult to separate between historical inheritances and
borrowing, especially in early stages before sound changes take place.
Ho and Yang (2000) divide Formosan language into six subgroups, I, II, III,
IV, V and VI. Paiwan and Rukai belong the Subgroup V and Subgroup III
respectively, as shown in Figure 7.3.
Proto-Austronesian V IV III Paiwan Puyuma Saaroa Kanakanavu Tsou Mantauran Rukai Maga Rukai Budai Rukai
Figure 7.3: Paiwan and Rukai in the Austronesian Family Tree
(After Ho and Yang, 2000)
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Ho and Yang (2000) classify Budai Rukai and Tsou into the same
subgroup, with independent branches in the subgroup, and Paiwan is an
independent branch of PAN in their proposal. They leave many problems
unsolved, such as the possibility of merger among the six subgroups, the
relationship of the languages in each subgroup. Although different classification
methods may stand for different hypotheses, it is apparent that recent proposals
(cf. Li 1990; Ho and Yang, 2000) tend to support the independent branch of each
language in the family tree.
In the chapter, I am not substituting areal typology for historical or genetic
subgrouping. Rather, phonetic observations are made in addition to the basic
historical issues, which may or may not reflect the subgrouping directly. Section
7.1 provides evidence from the segments in Paiwan and Budai Rukai.
Characteristics of consonants, vowels and syllable structure of Paiwan and Budai
Rukai are presented and compared. The segmental characteristics of the two
languages have a bearing on the historical reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian
(PAN) language. Section 7.2 is the evidence from prosody, including the prosodic
representations of stress and pitch accent in Paiwan and Budai Rukai. As I have
proposed at the beginning of the project, accentual patterns from Formosan
languages are essential for the reconstruction of PAN stress. Peak prominences
and accentuation of Paiwan and Budai Rukai have implications for the historical
development of prosody in PAN. Section 7.3 describes the phonological features
in cognates and loans, as the evidence for the relationship between Paiwan and
Budai Rukai and the independent development in each language. Section 7.4
draws the issues of language contact in the Paiwan and Budai Rukai tribes. Some
of the phonological features shared by Paiwan and Budai Rukai are due to recent
302
contact. The section also summarizes the types of contact phonology in Paiwan
and Budai Rukai.
7.1 Evidence from Segments
7.1.1 Consonants
Budai Rukai consonants differ from Paiwan consonants in their presence
of interdental fricatives and the lack of palatal and uvular stops. As mentioned
earlier, Paiwan is notable for its large sum of consonantal phonemes, compared
with the other Formosan languages. Yet, the merger of consonants has occurred
in Northern Paiwan, particularly, the area with contact with Budai Rukai or the
other Rukai dialects. Palatalization, a process to turn anterior fricative segments
into non-anterior fricative segments before a high front vowel, occurs in both
Paiwan and Rukai. Both of the two languages have stops, fricatives, an affricate,
a trill, nasals, laterals, and glides. Place of articulation, on the other hand, is the
distinctive feature among the Paiwan dialects and Budai Rukai. The place of
articulation of the stop and fricative consonants in the examined languages is
compared, as illustrated in Table 7.1.
Table 7.1: Place of articulation of stops and fricative in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
=attested; Gray background=unattested
Place of
articulation
Budai Ruaki Northern
Paiwan
Central
Paiwan
Southern
Paiwan
Labial
Interdental
Alveolar
Retroflex
Palatal
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Velar
Uvular
Glottal
Interdental, palatal, uvular and glottal segments in Paiwan and Budai
Rukai are more restricted than segments with the other place features.
Consequently, unrestricted segments occur more frequently and have wider
distribution than restricted segments. Segments attested in the two languages are
more likely to be attested in the other Formosan languages. In fact, palatal stops
/c/ and // are not attested in the other Formosan languages.
Ho (1983) claims that the number and types of Rukai consonants had
many Paiwanic phonological features. Rukai retained the distinction between k
and g in PAN, which is one of the phonological features of the Paiwanic. It is not
clear, however, what exactly the Paiwanic or Rukai phonological features are in
Ho’s (1983) study.
On the other hand, the phonological feature shared by Northern Paiwan
and Budai Rukai is the absence of palatal and uvular stops, whereas all the
Paiwan languages are short of interdental fricatives. Many Formosan languages
do not have palatal stops. The observation leads to my proposal that the merger
between alveolar and palatal segments in Northern Paiwan may be
diachronically or synchronically motivated by language contact with Budai
Rukai or the other languages adjacent to Paiwan. None of the Rukai dialects have
palatal segments or uvular stops. Frequent contact with the other unrestricted
phonological features may lead to segmental merger or loss of phonemic
distinction. In the case of Northern Paiwan, for instance, the merger might be
triggered by both internal and external factors.
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Many Formosan languages do not have the interdental segments, and the
distinction between and c is one of the phonological features of PAN (cf. Ho,
1983). Interdental fricative // was pronounced as [z] by some younger native
speakers of Budai Rukai. Younger generation in the tribes is bilingual or
multilingual, with the tribal language as the native language and Mandarin as
the first language. Many Budai Rukai speakers also speak the Paiwan language.
Interdental feature is rather restricted in Formosan languages, and it is absent in
Mandarin and Paiwan. The shift from interdental to alveolar z has become an
inevitable outcome. Alveolar z is attested in all the dialects of Paiwan.
Consequently, allophones or sound change may occur in the Rukai speech of the
tribal younger speakers due to recent contact.
An interesting phenomenon attested in both Paiwan and Budai Rukai is the
morphophonemic alternation between glides and fricatives. Li (1974) argues that
reflexes of Formosan and Philippine languages for PAN *y and *w in the word-
final position are mostly y and w respectively, while in the non-final positions
their reflexes vary from glides to fricatives or liquids. Following his argument,
the underlying phonemic status of glides in PAN is ascertained, but the
phonemic representation of glides in the daughter languages is somewhat
marginal. Morphophonemic Alternation Rule between /w/ and /v/ in Paiwan
indicates that alternation occurs within a prosodic word, across a morpheme
boundary but not across a lexical word boundary. The similar alternation
between glides and fricatives was also attested in Budai Rukai. Alternation
between /j/ and // occurs at morpheme-boundary position only before
suffixes beginning with -a.
The observation on the two languages leads to the generalization that both
Paiwan and Budai Rukai retained the glide feature in PAN. Alternation between
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glides and fricatives in Paiwan and Budai Rukai has something to do with the
syllable structure in a prosodic word. According to Blust’s (1988) Austronesian
root theory, roots have the phonemic shape CV(C), where the last consonant is
rarely absent and occurs morpheme-finally only. Following his root theory, the
syllables in Paiwan and Budai Rukai prefer to begin with a consonant. In other
words, a canonical syllable should have an onset. Therefore, stem-final glides
become consonantal fricatives when followed by a vocalic suffixed morpheme.
However, Budai Rukai generally does not allow the last consonant morpheme-
finally, which is rather different from the syllable structure of Paiwan. More
syllabic distinction between Paiwan and Budai Rukai is found in section 7.1.3.
7.1.2 Vowel Distribution
I have shown respectively Paiwan vowel inventory in Chapter 2 (§ 2.2)
and Budai Rukai vowels in Chapter 5 (§ 5.2). The inventories of the two
languages are summarized in (1).
(1) a. Paiwan vowel inventory b. Budai Rukai vowel inventory
i u i u ii uu
(o)
a a a
Vowel inventory in Paiwan and Budai Rukai agrees with the notion that
just four Proto-Austronesian vowels a, , i, and u are admitted (cf. Blust, 1988).
However, Budai Rukai differs from Paiwan in its vowel length at penult.
Phonetic vowel length in a language may vary depending on its position in a
prosodic word. Final vowels could be lengthened in Paiwan, whereas vowel
length contrast at penultimate position in Budai Rukai was verified.
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Phonetic mid-high vowel o was attested in both Budai Rukai and Paiwan.
Vowel o was found in loanwords as a marginal phoneme in Paiwan. Phoneme
/o/ was selected for the representation of both Budai Rukai and Proto-Rukai in
Li’s (1977a) reconstruction study, whereas /u/ was documented in Zeitoun’s
(2000) preliminary reference grammar. Though the phoneme /u/ was presented
in the current project, I have noted and admitted the occurrence of the o sound in
Budai Rukai. Based on acoustic measurements, I have shown that the height of
the segment /u/ is closer to that of the schwa segment, and that the lower
allophones of the phoneme /u/ were perceived as the phonetic [o] sound. Recall
that tongue position for the vowel /i/ is higher than that for the vowel /u/ in
Paiwan and Budai Rukai. The observations on the two languages indicate the
lower distribution of the vowel /u/ in the Paiwan and Budai Rukai languages.
The evidence for the prominent hierarchy of vowels in Paiwan comes
from the stress-bearing units, particularly, the prominence distinction in Central
Paiwan. Peripheral vowels are more prominent stress-bearing units than central
vowel in Central Piuma Paiwan. In Budai Rukai, low vowel is more sonorant or
prominent than high vowels, and peripheral vowels are more sonorant than the
central vowel. The similarity between Paiwan and Budai Rukai is the lowest
vowel prominence of central schwa // in the hierarchy or sonority scale, which
has been observed in many of the world’s languages. Because of the wider
distribution of the vowels /i/, /u/ and /a/, and because the vowels /i/, /u/
and /a/ are more frequently attested in many other Formosan languages than
the mid schwa, //is restricted. The restriction of the weak schwa can be found
in segmental sequences, echo vowels, syllable structure, and prosodic
prominence. Schwa // is more restricted in Central Paiwan than in the other
dialects of Paiwan, whereas it exhibits more freedom in Budai Rukai. The
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restriction of the schwa in the dialects of Paiwan and Budai Rukai is summarized
in Table 7.2, in which the asterisk ‘*’ indicates prohibited or no occurrence.
Table 7.2: Restriction of Weak Schwa in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Budai Rukai Northern Paiwan Central Paiwan Southern Paiwan
*Diphthong *Diphthong
*#V, *V#
Stressless at penult
*Diphthong
*#V, *V#
*Diphthong
*#V, *V#
In both Paiwan and Budai Rukai, vowel sequences may be realized as
diphthongs depending on their relative sonority and position-in-words.
Generally, diphthongs occur more frequently in word-final position than in
word-medial position. A schwa is never realized as a diphthong with the other
vowel in vowel sequences. It never occurs in vowel sequences of Paiwan, and it
may occur in vowel sequences (other than long vowels) of Budai Rukai but must
be divided into different syllables.
It has been pointed out that a schwa is preferred in vowel epenthesis.
Vowel copying occurs in all the vowels at word-final position in Budai Rukai,
except the most sonorant /a/. When the obligatory feature [-low] in the base
vowel for copying is not available, central schwa is always the best candidate
for the constraints on copying. Vowel epenthesis has a bearing on the syllable
structure in Budai Rukai, whereas the preference of the weak schwa at word-
final position is due to its phonetic weak property.
The distribution of vowels in the two languages indicates that the general
principles of vowel sonority in Paiwan and Budai Rukai can be found in many of
the world’s languages. Phonetic o sound in Paiwan is due to language contact,
and the confusion of /u/ and /o/ segments in the field reports of Budai Rukai is
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due to the lower distribution of /u/. Vowel distribution in the two languages
cannot stand for the account that Paiwan or Budai Rukai belongs to the same
subgroup of PAN. Neither can it account for the proposal of Rukai with any
other subgroup of PAN.
7.1.3 Phonological Constraints on the Two Languages
The definition of constraints, under the framework of Optimality Theory
(Kager 1999), is a structural requirement that may be either satisfied or violated
by an output form. OT recognizes two types of constraints, faithfulness
constraints and markedness constraints (Kager, 1999). Faithfulness constraints
require that outputs preserve the properties of their basic forms, while
markedness constraints require that output forms meet some criterion of
structural well-formedness. As I have discussed the pros and cons of Optimality
Theory in Chapter 1, the theory allows us to relate the patterns in a language to
patterns across languages, which is appropriate for the comparison of Paiwan
and Budai Rukai here. Optimality Theory assumes that all the languages have
the same set of ranking, and the difference among languages lies in the ranking
of the constraints. For instance, typological studies of syllable structure (cf.
Blevins 1995) have suggested that syllables prefer to begin with a consonant but
end in a vowel. Onset (Prince and Smolensky 1993) is a structural well-
formedness constraint, based on the typological results. Languages that avoid
codas suggest that the situation is for syllables to have codas. The restricted
situation is thus encoded in the well-formedness constraint.
Now, consider the cognates in Paiwan and Budai Rukai, as shown in (2).
(2) Paiwan Budai Rukai GLOSS
údal údal ‘rain’
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luá luá ‘cattle’
ális válisi ‘tooth’
ísis isíisi ‘beard’
váva báava ‘wine’
Canonical syllable structure of Paiwan and Budai Rukai is detected in the
shape of these cognates. It is apparent that the major distinction between Paiwan
and Budai Rukai syllable structures is the permission of the final consonantal
coda in Paiwan. Both Paiwan and Budai Rukai syllables are with or without
onset, while coda is allowed in Paiwan only. All the well-formed prosodic words
in Budai Rukai end in a vowel.
A number of constraints are proposed to capture the syllable structure in
Paiwan and Budai Rukai. Constraints in (3) are correspondence constraints,
whereas constraints in (4) are syllable-related constraints.
(3) Correspondence constraints
a. MAX-IO: Input segments must have output correspondents (No deletion)
b. DEP-IO: Output segments must have input correspondents (No epenthesis)
(4) Typological syllable constraints
a. Onset *[ V : syllables must have onsets
b. No-Coda *C] : syllables are open
A comparison of margin complexity in Paiwan and Budai Rukai is
illustrated in Table 7.3. Distinctive syllable types are in bold. Syllable types not
attested in the two languages are marked by an asterisk ‘*’ with gray background.
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Table 7.3: Margin complexity in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Comparison No Coda Simple codas only Complex codas
No Onset V, VV VC *VCC
Simple onsets only CV, CVV
Budai Rukai
CVC, CVVC
Paiwan
*CVCC
Complex onsets *CCV *CCVC *CCVCC
The crucial constraint in Budai Rukai syllables is No-Coda. Both complex onsets
and complex codas have nothing to do with the syllable structure of Paiwan and
Budai Rukai, because they are absolutely prohibited in the languages. This is the
strong evidence that Budai Rukai should be not grouped with the Tsouic
languages, which allow consonantal clusters in both word initial and internal
positions (cf. Tung 1964; Ho 1976; Wright 1997, 1999). Based on the prohibition of
onset clusters in Budai Rukai and the segmental features, I argue that the
hypothesis of the Tsouic and Budai Rukai as a subgroup is not reliable.
Echo vowel in Budai Rukai raises an issue of phonological constraints on
syllable structure. It has been proposed in Chapter 5 (§ 5.2) that echo vowels are
treated as epentheses to avoid consonantal coda in the surface forms of Budai
Rukai. The following ranking in Budai Rukai must be set up to distinguish the
syllable types of the two languages, as shown in (5).
(5) Vowel epenthesis triggered to avoid coda margins in Budai Rukai
No-Coda >> DEP-IO
The ranking is held not only at margins of a word but also at word-medial
position in Budai Rukai. In Paiwan, No-Coda should be ranked below either
DEP-IO or MAX-IO, as final coda is allowed without any other phonological
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condition. Consonantal clusters, though not allowed at onset and coda position
in both Paiwan and Budai Rukai, occur at word-medial position in Paiwan.
In summary, phonological constraints in OT relate the patterns of Paiwan
and Budai Rukai to the patterns across languages. Ranking of the constraints
captures the features in Paiwan and Budai Rukai that distinguish one from the
other. The critical constraints related to the syllable structure in Budai Rukai are
No-Coda >> DEP-IO. The constraint ranking indicates the independent branches
of Paiwan and Budai Rukai, as the two languages demonstrate distinctive
phonological features and constraints. Most Formosan languages exhibit the
PAN canonical CVC syllable structure. Ross (1992), from an outsider’s view,
argues that the Formosan data indicate that the canonical shape of PAN bases
was CVCVC. However, there are a number of Formosan languages in which a
vowel is added after an earlier final consonant, for instance, Mantauran Rukai
and Kanakanavu. He raises the example of the reduplicated monosyllable
*ged1géd1 in PAN, in which vowel appears after each occurrence of the
reduplicated monosyllable. Budai Rukai should have been categorized into the
Formosan languages in which a vowel is added after an earlier final consonant.
Echo vowel reflects the preservation of the syllable structure of Proto-Rukai,
given that Budai Rukai is the proper and the most conservative dialect. Yet, it is
not clear in Ross’s (1992) statement what triggered vowel epenthesis and when
the epenthesis occurred historically in the language. A more reasonable account
seems to assume Rukai as an independent branch of PAN, from which
epenthesis of vowels and innovations of the syllable structure occurred.
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7.1.4 Implications for Historical Reconstruction
Sound change has occurred in both Paiwan and Budai Rukai. Synchronic
phonetic and phonological varieties attested in the speech communities have a
bearing on the diachronic reconstruction of sound patterns. Generally speaking,
Budai Rukai preserves most of the sounds in Proto-Rukai, and Central Paiwan
preserved most of the sounds in Proto-Paiwan. No phonological merger was
attested in Budai Rukai and Central Paiwan. The observations on the two
languages indicate that Budai Rukai and Central Paiwan are the most
conservative forms among their dialects. The major sound change attested in
Paiwan and Budai Rukai is summarized in Table 7.4. In the table, segments with
an asterisk ‘*’ indicate the proto-forms.
Table 7.4: Major sound change in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Budai Rukai Northern Paiwan Central Paiwan Southern Paiwan
*v > O
* > j
* > O
*c > t
* > d
*q >
* > l
*w > v
(word-finally only)
*k >
*r >
To better illustrate the distinctive sound patterns in the two languages, the
consonantal segments of PAN (cf. Dyen, 1965; Tsuchida, 1976; Ho, 1983; Wolff,
1988; Blust, 1990; Ross, 1992) are paralleled with those of Proto-Paiwan (Ho, 1978)
and Proto-Rukai (Li, 1977a), as shown in (6). Note not all consonantal segments
in PAN are presented. Phonemes not attested in both Proto-Paiwan and Proto-
Rukai languages are in bold and marked with gray background.
(6) PAN Proto-Paiwan Proto-Rukai
*p *p *p
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*b *b *b
*t1 *t *t
*c *c
*d1 *d *d
*Z *
*d3 * *
*k *k *k
*g *g *g
*q *q
*
*R *
*b *v *v
*S1 *s *s
*s *t *
*d2 *z *
*C *ts *ts
*m *m *m
*n *n *n
* * *
*r *r
*R *r
*l * *
*L * *l
*w *w *w
*j *j *j
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Shown in (6), the merger of palatal sounds in Proto-Rukai applies to the
sound change from Proto-Paiwan to Northern Paiwan. The proposal of Rukai as
the subgroup of the Paiwanic cannot account for the reflexes in Proto-Paiwan
and Proto-Rukai, for instance, the development of the interdental segments, and
the merger or loss of phonemes. The sound patterns in the proto-languages
capture the derivation and reflection in each sub-dialect. It provides evidence not
only for historical sound change but also for synchronic language contact
between Northern Paiwan and Budai Rukai. The reconstructed phonemes in
PAN, Proto-Paiwan and Proto-Rukai support the argument that Paiwan or Budai
Rukai is an independent branch of PAN. The similarities between Northern
Paiwan and Budai Rukai are due to recent contact.
7.2 Evidence from Prosody
7.2.1 Stress Patterns
Stress patterns in Paiwan are quantity-insensitive. I have proposed the
metrical parameters for Paiwan stress as follows: form syllabic trochees from
right to left and end rule right. Final stress subject to schwa penult […σσ]Prwd
was also proposed to account for the distribution of stress in Central Paiwan.
Stress in Northern and Southern Paiwan does not seem to seek out the most
prominent vowel. On the other hand, the metrical parameters in Budai Rukai
stress were proposed as follows: syllable extrametricality must be set up prior to
forming moraic trochees from right to left and end rule right. When long vowels
occur at penult, they get main stress. Long vowels in the other positions where
they do not receive main stress, they are shortened. Moreover, secondary stress
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was attested in Budai Rukai, on remaining heavy syllables, and on every other
light syllable counting from right to the left.
The major differences between Paiwan and Budai Rukai stress patterns
are the quantity-sensitive and extrametrical property in Budai Rukai. Main stress
in Budai Rukai falls on either the heavy penult or the antepenult of a word,
depending on the weight of the penult. In other words, syllable weight plays a
crucial role in the assignment of stress. Vowel length contrast is expressed at
penult in Budai Rukai.
Roots or stems in a prosodic word are always the optimal stress-bearing
units in Paiwan and Budai Rukai. Depending on the position to which the
morphemes are attached and the number of syllables, suffixes may be stressed or
unstressed. Ligatures, however, tend to be stressless in both Paiwan and Budai
Rukai. Vocalic ligatures or CV-construction markers are treated as extrametrical.
Final lengthening in Paiwan is a phonetic representation, whereas long vowel
contrast at penultimate position in Budai Rukai is a phonological representation.
On the other hand, final syllables in Budai Rukai must be stressless, when
the syllables are not monosyllabic stems. Monosyllabic stems in Budai Rukai are
restricted. A prosodic word in Budai Rukai generally cannot end in a stressed
syllable, regardless of the quantity of the syllable. The following constraint
captures the property of Budai Rukai stress, which is the counterpart of
‘extrametricality’, as shown in (7).
(7) NONFINALITY (Prince and Smolensky 1993)
No prosodic head is final in PrWd
On the contrary, a prosodic word in Central Paiwan receives stress at the
final syllable if it has a schwa penult. It is apparent that the constraint
NONFINALITY must be violated in Central Paiwan but obeyed in Budai Rukai.
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Neither does Paiwan nor Budai Rukai has initial main stress in prosodic words
longer than four syllables. A cross-linguistic preference is for stress to fall at
edges of the domain. The pair of metrical alignment constraints is LEFTMOST and
RIGHTMOST (Prince and Smolensky 1993), as shown in (8).
(8) a. LEFTMOST: Align (Hd-Ft, Left, PrWd, Left)
The head foot is leftmost in PrWd
b. RIGHTMOST: Align (Hd-Ft, Right, PrWd, Right)
The head foot is rightmost in PrWd
Given that both Paiwan stress and Budai Rukai stress obey the constraint
RIGHTMOST, the constraint NONFINALITY distinguishes the right edge prominence
in Budai moraic trochee stress from that in Paiwan syllabic trochee stress. The
constraint ranking of edge alignment prominence is illustrated in Table 7.5.
Table 7.5: Constraint ranking for edge alignment in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Constraint Ranking Result Language
NONFINALITY>>
RIGHTMOST >> LEFTMOST
Antepenultimate stress Budai Rukai
RIGHTMOST >> LEFTMOST,
NONFINALITY
Penultimate stress Paiwan
However, penultimate stress was also attested in Budai Rukai, in heavy
penults. Stress in Budai Rukai falls on the penult if the penultimate syllable is
heavy. Quantity-sensitive stress is the matching of syllable weight and
prominence. Weight-to-Stress Principle is the most important constraint in this
type of stress, as shown in (9).
(9) WSP: Heavy syllables are stressed (Prince and Smolensky 1993)
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The constraint WSP distinguishes the penultimate stress in Budai Rukai
from that in Paiwan. The constraint ranking of the penultimate stress in the two
languages is illustrated in Table 7.6.
Table 7.6: Constraint ranking for penultimate stress in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Constraint Ranking Result Language
NONFINALITY>> WSP,
RIGHTMOST >> LEFTMOST
Penultimate stress
(Heavy penults)
Budai Rukai
RIGHTMOST >> LEFTMOST,
NONFINALITY, WSP
Penultimate stress Paiwan
The critical constraints related to the prosodic prominence in Budai Rukai
are summarized in (10).
(10) Critical constraints in Budai Rukai
NONFINALITY>> RIGHTMOST, WSP >> LEFTMOST
It is apparent that the syllabic trochee stress in Paiwan is different from
the moraic trochee stress in Budai Rukai. Final syllables as extrametrical and
Weight-by-penultimate-position in Budai Rukai are important indicators that the
development of prosody in Rukai or its proto-language was not under the
subgroup of the Paiwanic. While stress variation attested in Budai Rukai villages
is due to recent contact (§ 6.1.1), the canonical stress patterns in the language
support the argument that Budai Rukai is an independent branch of PAN.
7.2.2 Pitch Accent
Pitch accent in Paiwan and Budai Rukai occurs in prosodic words.
Although no distinctive lexical accent was attested in Paiwan, regional pitch
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accent in Budai Rukai is associated with long vowels, with the first mora of the
long vowel aligned with a high pitch tone and the second mora aligned with a
low tone. Regional pitch accent HL in Budai Rukai has become another index for
the distinction between long and short vowels in Budai Rukai.
As far as imperative accent is concerned, the formation of imperatives in
Paiwan and Budai Rukai shares the similarity of the following vocalic morpheme,
-u or –i in Paiwan, and –a in Budai Rukai. I have claimed that imperative accent
in the two languages is predictable. However, imperatives of Budai Rukai differ
from those of Paiwan in their elision of the echo vowels and final extrametrical
syllables. Not every Paiwan imperative ends with a high pitch accent at the right
edge of a prosodic word, and only stems or verbs ending with the same vowel of
the imperative vocalic morpheme, i.e., u or i, are aligned with a high pitch
imperative accent at the right edge of the imperatives. In Budai Rukai, the peak
prominence attested in the imperative structure is at penult, regardless of the
quantity of the vowels. In Paiwan, accent attested in address forms is at the right
edge of the prosodic words.
As for the tonality in the languages, regional pitch accent HL in Budai
Rukai is usually aligned with long vowels only, and it has a bearing on the
contrastive stress of Proto-Rukai, as well as on PAN stress. Pitch accent in
Paiwan cannot account for the prosodic patterns attested in Budai Rukai. Again,
this is another evidence for the argument that the development of prosody in
Budai Rukai and Proto-Rukai was not under the subgroup of the Paiwanic.
7.2.3 Implications for Proto-Austronesian Stress
Historical reconstruction studies on Proto-Austronesian (PAN) language
have focused on segmental reconstruction. Prosodic components, such as PAN
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stress or accent are not clear yet. The data drawn from Wolff (1993) have lead to
the generalization that PAN roots had a stress contrast in the final two syllables
of the root. The vowel length contrast at penult and stress distribution in Budai
Rukai seem to conform Wolff’s (1993) claim, except the synchronic syllable
extrametricality attested in the current project. On the other hand, vowel length
is not phonemic in Paiwan, and stress in Paiwan is generally position-dominated.
Wolff’s (1993) proposal on PAN stress entails three assumptions: (i) second-right
edge or right edge of PAN root is the optimal position for stress; (ii) vowels of
PAN root have long and short contrast; (iii) PAN stress is quantity-sensitive.
Based on these assumptions and the findings in the current project, the historical
development of stress from PAN to modern Paiwan and Budai Rukai is
reconstructed, as shown in (11).
(11) PAN STRESS
Proto-Rukai Proto-Paiwan
Epenthesis of an Echo Vowel Loss of Vowel Length Contrast
Syllable Extrametricality
Final Stress Subject to Schwa Penult
Budai Rukai
Central Paiwan
Northern Paiwan Southern Paiwan
Shown in (11), syllable extrametricality in Budai Rukai seems to be an
indicator for the canonical stress in PAN, reflecting a later epenthesis of an echo
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vowel in the historical development of stress. The historical reconstruction
illustrated in (11) is apparently against the proposals that have claimed the sub-
grouping of Rukai with the Tsouic or with the Paiwanic. Taking echo vowels and
syllable extrametricality into account, the stress patterns in Budai Rukai exactly
reflect the PAN stress patterns reconstructed by Wolff (1993). Extrametricality in
Budai Rukai is a reflex of the historical development of echo vowels. On the
other hand, contrast of vowel length is lost in Proto-Paiwan. Final stress subject
to schwa penult in Central Paiwan is very likely to be the remnant of the
contrastive stress in PAN.
Among the languages and dialects investigated in the current project,
Budai Rukai is the only one that exhibits contrast of vowel length at penult. In
fact, many languages of the Philippines show contrasts between long and short
vowels. In Proto-Philippines (PPH), a penultimate * was always short, but *a, *i,
or *u could be either long or short. Zorc (1993) points out that although there is
no Formosan language corresponding in a completely systematic manner with
the oxytone/paroxytone contrast of PPH, there are indicators in Formosan
languages that such a contrast is reconstructable for PAN and is fragmentarily
reflected in these languages. The current project has provided two more
indicators in the Formosan languages that reflect the contrastive stress in PAN:
syllable extrametricality in Budai Rukai and final stress subject to schwa penult
in Central Paiwan. In addition, imperative and pragmatic accents in Paiwan and
Budai Rukai are the new evidence counter to Zorc’s (1993) syntactic classification
on final accent. Imperative accent does not always fall to the final syllables in
Paiwan, and it never falls to the final syllables in Budai Rukai.
Stress contrast in Budai is the most interesting point for the reconstruction
of PAN stress. The interaction between phonemic vowel length at penult and
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stress provides evidence for the argument of contrastive stress in PAN roots. The
stress patterns of Budai Rukai described in the current project not only provide
new evidence for the reconstruction of PAN stress but also elucidate Ross’s (1992)
proposal that the oxytones of Budai are apparently the last remnants of PAN
contrastive stress, with an account of syllable extrametricality. Following Ross
(1992), the so-called oxytones of Budai generally correspond with Proto-
Philippines (PPH) oxytones, and therefore presumably reflect PAN oxytones.
Finally, the reconstruction of historical development of PAN stress in this section
has supported the idea that Paiwan and Budai Rukai is each an entirely
independent branch of PAN.
7.3 Cognates and Loans
Phonological innovations exclusively shared by two languages have been
taken as evidence for a close genetic relationship between the languages (cf. Li
1990). Cognates have become the most important indices for the historical
reconstruction and the relationship between Paiwan and Budai Rukai. I have
argued that Paiwan and Budai Rukai are the independent branches of PAN, and
that some similarities shared by the two languages are due to recent contact. In
this section, cognates are presented for the verification of sound change from
PAN to the modern languages. Loans, on the other hand, provide evidence for
language contact and the synchronic phonological adaptation in each language.
Cognates attested in PAN (cf. Ross, 1992), Proto-Rukai (Li, 1977a) and
Proto-Paiwan (Ho 1983; Ho and Yang 2000) are illustrated in (12). In the
following examples, the asterisk ‘*’ indicates the proto-forms.
(12) PAN GLOSS Proto-Rukai Proto-Paiwan
a. *babuy ‘boar’ *baboy *vavuy
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b. *qayam ‘bird’ *a-a-aam *qayaqayam
c. *tuLa ‘eel’ *tola *cua
d. *laaw ‘big fly’ *aaaw *aaaw
e. *maCa ‘eye’ *maca *maca
f. *qaCy ‘liver’ *aay *qacay
g. *liqR ‘neck’ * *iq
h. *luSq ‘tears’ *s *usq
i. *Sapuy ‘fire’ *apoy *sapuy
j. *quZaL ‘rain’ *odal *qua
k. *tbuS ‘sugarcane’ *coboso *Cvus
l. *quay ‘rattan’ *ovay *quay
m. *qubuh ‘ash’ *abo *qavu
n. *pajay ‘rice plant’ *pagay *paday
o. * kuCuh ‘louse’ *koco *kucu
p. *CaliaR ‘ear’ *caia *caia
q. *kaSuy ‘tree’ *aato *kasiw
r. *biCuka ‘stomach’ *bicoka *vicuka
s. *susuh ‘breast’ *oo *tutu
t. *Spat ‘four’ *spat *spac
u. *lima ‘five’ *ima *ima
v. *unm ‘six’ *nm *unm
w. *pitu ‘seven’ *pito *pitu
x. *Siwa ‘nine’ *baat *siva
y. *Zalan ‘road’ *daan *alan
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z. *bgay ‘to give’ *baay *pavai
Shown in (12), Proto-Paiwan retained the CV(C) syllable structure in PAN,
while vowel epenthesis at word-final position occurred in Proto-Rukai. Syllables
in Proto-Rukai did not end with a real consonant. It is apparent that both Proto-
Rukai and Proto-Paiwan are the daughter languages of PAN, as most of the
cognates in PAN have their corresponding reflexes in the daughter languages.
Uvular consonant *q in PAN at word-initial position was generally deleted in
Proto-Rukai, and some cognates in Proto-Rukai reflected their innovations, as
shown in (12q) and (12x). This is the direct evidence for the independent
development of Proto-Rukai in historical reconstruction. On the other hand,
Proto-Paiwan retained not only the syllable structure but also most of the
phonemic segments in PAN. This explains why earlier studies have claimed that
Taiwan may be the oldest area where the PAN forms are preserved (cf. Blust
1977, 1999; Ross 2002) and the phoneme inventory in Paiwan directly comparable
to the PAN inventory (Ferrell, 1982). It also explains why the Paiwanic was an
independent branch of PAN in earlier classification (cf. Dyen 1963, 1965; Ferrell
1969, 1980; Tsuchida, 1976).
As we have seen in Chapter 6 (§ 6.1.1), Budai speakers who have frequent
contact with Northern Paiwan speakers may have acquired the stress patterns of
Northern Paiwan. Some cognates presented in Chapter 6 are repeated here with
the corresponding forms in Central and Southern Paiwan (PW), as shown in (13).
The segmental distinction between Northern and Central/Southern Paiwan (PW)
is in bold.
(13) Budai Rukai Northern Paiwan Central/Southern PW GLOSS
a. válisi ális áis ‘tooth’
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b. tsáki tsái tsáqi ‘excrement’
c. s s sq /sq ‘tear’
d. láts láts áts ‘vegetables’
e. paúal paúal paúa ‘pineapple’
f. válak álak áak ‘kid’
g. áaj átsaj qátsaj ‘liver’
h. údal údal qúal ‘rain’
i. údas údas qúdas ‘white hair’
j. túla túla cúa ‘eel’
k. báali váli vái ‘board’
l. tsúbusu tvus cvús/cvus ‘sugarcane’
Shown in (13), the canonical syllable structure of Paiwan is preserved in
Northern Paiwan, but the merger of consonantal segments or phoneme shift
occurs in several cases. For instance, uvular q is attested in Central and Southern
Paiwan but lost in Northern Paiwan. This is the evidence that sound change
occurs in Northern Paiwan, and the change may be due to the language contact
with Budai Rukai. No uvular stop occurs in Budai, and the Northern Paiwan
speakers live geographically adjacent to the Budai speakers. All the Paiwan
speakers also speak Mandarin, but Central and Southern Paiwan speakers still
preserve the uvular stop sound. A more reasonable account for the phoneme
shift from uvular stop q to the glottal stop in Northern Paiwan is the direct
contact with Budai Rukai. Similarly, palatal sounds /c/, // and // become
alveolar sounds /t/, /d/ and /l/ in Northern Paiwan, but those palatal sounds
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are preserved in Central and Southern Paiwan, which is another direct evidence
that sound change attested in Northern Paiwan is due to recent contact with
Budai Rukai. Other languages such as Mandarin and Taiwanese may play a role
in the phoneme shift or sound merger, but the primary factor to trigger the
change in Northern Paiwan is the absence of the sounds in Budai Rukai and the
frequent contact between Northern Paiwan and Budai Rukai speakers.
On the other hand, the loan words attested in Paiwan are from a wide
variety of languages, including Japanese, Mandarin, Taiwanese (Southern Min),
and the other Formosan languages. Paiwan speakers have a long period of
contact with the speakers of Chinese and Taiwanese, and the language contact is
still ongoing. Paiwan was under the effective control of Japanese from 1895 to
1945, and this fact is reflected in the large number of terms borrowed from
Japanese, particularly in the fields of education, administrative organization, and
electronics. According to Ferrell’s (1982) description, Japanese was widely used
as a contact language for missionary work, and many terms having to do with
church or proselytizing came to be used in Paiwan after World War II. Ever since
Mandarin has replaced Japanese as the official contact language, Mandarin loans
have been gradually increasing. The majority of older Paiwan speakers are
Japanese and Paiwan bilinguals or Paiwan monolinguals with at least elementary
listening comprehension of Mandarin, while the speakers under the age of fifty
are Mandarin and Paiwan bilinguals.
The Japanese loans collected in Central Piuma Paiwan are shown in (14).
Donor Japanese words are placed in the parentheses.
(14) Japanese Loans in Paiwan
Paiwan Gloss (Japanese Origin)
a. íka ‘TV, movie’ (< eega ‘movie’)
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b. básu ‘bus’ (< basu ‘bus’)
c. gakú ‘school’ (< gakkoo ‘school’)
d. biúyin ‘hospital’ (< byuuyin ‘hospital’)
e. kisátsu ‘policeman’ (< keisatsu ‘policeman’)
f. a.mí.i.ka ‘American, Europeans’ (< amerika ‘America’)
g. sisín1 ‘teacher’ (< sensee ‘teacher’)
h. itíba ‘market’ (< itiba ‘market’)
i. dinwá ‘telephone’ (< denwa ‘telephone’)
j. mízi ‘road’ (< miti ‘road’)
k. otúbay ‘motorcycle’ (<ootobai ‘autubicycle’)
l. sási ‘to photograph’ (< shashin ‘photography’)
Quite a few phonological changes have been made for the incorporation of
the loans. The detailed changes are given in (15).
(15) Phonological Change in Japanese Loans
(a) Vowel Adaptation: Paiwan does not borrow the mid-high vowel /e/ from
Japanese but raises the /e/ vowel in Japanese to /i/ (/e/> /i/), as shown
in (14a, e, f, g, i). Phoneme substitution has been found to be the most
frequent adaptation when a foreign sound in loanwords does not exist in
the receiving language. The Paiwan phoneme /i/ has become the
equivalent of Japanese /e/ in loanwords.
(b) Loss of Long Vowels: loanwords borrowed from Japanese usually do not
retain the vowel length distinction, as illustrated in (14c, d, g, k).
(c) Unpredictable Stress Assignment: vowels originally long in Japanese may
get stressed in Paiwan, which violates the general principles for stress
1 Paiwan speakers have their aboriginal word rutuutuu for ‘teacher’. But they usually call the teachers in the local schools ‘sisín’.
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assignment, as shown in (14c) and (14g). Japanese is a pitch accent
(High/Low) language, whereas Paiwan has word stress and phrasal stress.
All the loans in (14) have their primary stress, but the stress patterns in
loans are not predictable.
(d) No Geminate Consonants: geminate consonants do not occur in Paiwan.
CC clusters at word-medial position are usually with phonological
restrictions, and *kk sequences are prohibited in Paiwan. The geminate
consonants in Japanese gakkoo have become a single consonant, as shown
in (14c). Yet, compensatory length does not occur after the degemination.
Nowadays Paiwan speakers switch to the Mandarin language code much
more frequently, rather than borrowing loanwords from Mandarin. In other
words, code-switching between Mandarin and Paiwan has become a typical
model for communication among Paiwan speakers under the age of fifty.
On the other hand, Paiwan speakers also have frequent contact with
Taiwanese people. Loans borrowed from Taiwanese cover a variety of fields. A
few examples of Taiwanese loans are illustrated in (16).
(16) Taiwanese Loans in Paiwan
Paiwan Gloss
a. káku ‘frame’
b. ísi2 ‘doctor’
c. isisíu ‘ public health office'
d. tsimitsimi ‘blind’
e. iúbai ‘vendor; grocery store’
2 Paiwan speakers also have an aboriginal word ruputsmtsmr ‘witch doctor’ for ‘doctor’ in the tribal society, in contrast to the doctor with modern medication training.
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f. ciam/dimpu ‘store’
g. pairá ‘Taiwanese people (bad people)’
h. kú ‘skirt’
i. síbin ‘towel’
Phoneme substitution, of course, also occurs in the Taiwanese loans. Note
that Taiwanese is a tone language, while Paiwan is a stress language. All the
tones in the donor language have become invisible in the loanwords. The most
salient phonological change in Taiwanese loans, in addition to the segmental
adaptation, is the prosodic pattern with unpredictable stress and the lost of
distinctive tonal features.
Loans attested in the Paiwan villages were sometimes used and
understood in Budai Rukai villages. However, the number of loans in Budai
Rukai is relatively less (§ 5.1.4). Monolingual Budai speakers could be found in
mountain areas. The majority of the loans in Budai Rukai are from Japanese, and
the Japanese loans are related to foreign food and living materials, such as
noodles, tables, and papers. Due to the geographical location of the Budai
speakers, terms with reference to the ocean, fishing, seafood, or animals in the
plain area are borrowed from the other languages, such as Paiwan or Mandarin.
Loans are the direct evidence for language contact. Loans drawn from the
Paiwan village support for the argument that language contact may cause
phonological adaptation or even sound change.
7.4 Language Contact in the Tribes
Contact among the Paiwan aborigines occurs most frequently between
Northern and Central areas, because they are geographically adjacent to each
other. As I have mentioned a case of immigration from Northern Paiwan to the
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Central in Chapter 2, the speaker has acquired the patterns of final stress subject
to schwa penult. Language contact, again, occurs between Northern Paiwan and
Budai Rukai. In both Northern Paiwan and Budai Rukai tribes, most of the
speakers are bilingual or multilingual. The second language within the
communities is either Mandarin (middle-aged or younger speakers) or Japanese
(elder speakers), or the other Formosan languages. Middle-aged Paiwan speakers
have reported that they are not able to understand the ‘classical’ Paiwan
language spoken by their grandparents and great grandparents or some
generation even older. It is the political or social factor that influences the
motivation of the speakers to learn the other languages or abandon their
indigenous languages.
Thomason and Kaufman (1988) have noted that constraints of structural
diffusion fit well with the notion connected with ease of learning. Psychological
factors or economy preference may contribute to sound preservation and
language maintenance. Winford (2003) examines a wide range of language
contact cases and states that the motivation for lexical borrowing depends on a
range of social factors that vary from one contact situation to another. Most of the
borrowing associated with distant contact, according to Winford (2003), seems to
be motivated by the need to designate new things. I have shown a list of
Japanese and Taiwanese loans in section 7.3. The speech communities of Paiwan
have experienced the need to modernize their tribal life, which motivates the
borrowing from Japanese to Paiwan. Japanese loans in Budai Rukai are
comparatively less. Yet, quite a few older speakers of Budai Rukai are capable of
speaking Japanese. The contact languages attested in the tribal communities of
Paiwan and Budai Rukai are shown in Table 7.7.
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Table 7.7: Contact languages in the tribal communities
Paiwan Tribes Budai Rukai Tribes
Mandarin Mandarin
Japanese Japanese
Paiwan dialects Northern Paiwan
Budai Rukai Rukai dialects
Other Formosan languages Other Formosan languages
On the other hand, the most significant consequence of borrowing is the
adaptation of phonological features of the donor language. In the Southern Sanhe
Village, where both the Northern Paiwan and Budai Rukai speakers are living,
Budai Rukai speakers can produce both Rukai and Paiwan stress patterns, and
either stress pattern is acceptable. In the mountain area such as Budai and
Haocha Villages, however, canonical Rukai stress patterns are retained in elder
speaker’s utterance. While many varieties attested in the tribal communities are
free variation or allophones, the merger of alveolar and palatal sounds in
Northern Paiwan is phonemic, which causes the loss of distinctiveness.
Thus far, different types of contact phonology attested in the Paiwan and
Budai Rukai tribal communities have been investigated. Cognates, loans and
prosodic patterns have provided direct evidence for the language contact
between Paiwan and Budai Rukai. The results are summarized in Table 7.8.
Table 7.8: Types of contact phonology in Paiwan and Budai Rukai
Features borrowed Examples Mechanism
Introduction of
new sounds
Vowel phoneme /o/ in
Paiwan
Direct contact with
Japanese
Loss of phonemic Merger of alveolar stops to Direct contact with
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distinction palatal stops (/c/> /t/ and
//>/d/) in Northern Paiwan
Budai Rukai (primary
factor)
Phoneme shift Uvular stop /q/ in Paiwan
becomes glottal stop // in
Northern Paiwan
Direct contact with
Budai Rukai
Phoneme shift Palatal // becomes alveolar
/l/ in Northern Paiwan
Direct contact with
Budai Rukai (primary)
Penultimate Stress Release from extrametricality
In Budai Rukai
Direct contact with
Northern Paiwan
It is clear that the language contact between Northern Paiwan and Budai
Rukai is bidirectional. Either Northern Paiwan or Budai Rukai can be the donor
language. Phonological change of segments occurs in Northern Paiwan, and the
variation of stress patterns occurs in Budai Rukai. Geographically adjacency is
the primary factor that affects the number of cognates and the phonological
similarities shared by Paiwan and Budai Rukai. Phonetic observations have been
made in addition to the basic historical issues, which may or may not reflect the
subgrouping directly. Historical reconstruction of cognates and synchronic
phonological features have provided evidence for the independent development
of Paiwan and Budai Rukai from PAN, and the innovations shared by the two
languages are due to recent contact.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
CONCLUDING REMARKS
8.1 Significance of the Study
The most significant contribution of the current project is to provide the
description, analysis and empirical measurements of prosody in the two
Formosan languages, which have never been found in any earlier theoretical
study or field report. The majority of field reports on Formosan languages give
rather minimal details on their prosodic properties, usually one or two lines of
vague description, not to mention the number of field reports on Formosan
languages is rather small.
The documentation of prosody of an unknown language would never be
accomplished without an exhaustive segmental phonology of the language.
Analysis of prosodic patterns in both Paiwan and Budai Rukai would be
incomplete without distinctive features of segments, and the distribution of
phonological patterns at word-level. Dialectal variation among the Paiwan
dialects has been noted. Prosody of Paiwan and Budai Rukai is built on solid
phonological patterns of the languages. With syllabic or moraic trochees of foot
construction in a prosodic word, canonical stress patterns in Paiwan and Budai
Rukai have been disclosed. With the distribution of free and bound morphemes
in a prosodic word and phonological phrase, stressless morphemes have been
accounted for. A cautious examination on word-level pitch accent and
intonational phrases has revealed the distinctive prosodic components in Paiwan
and Budai Rukai, which are related to the historical development of the accentual
patterns in their proto-languages.
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The prosodic structure in Paiwan comprises syllables, feet, prosodic
words, phonological phrases, accentual phrases, and intonational phrases.
Overlapping between prosodic levels may occur in a wide diversity of syntactic
phrases and discourse contexts. The distribution of pitch accent in imperative
construction and the use of accents to convey various types of semantic and
pragmatic information have been investigated. Accent associated with address
forms and social relationship may be retained in natural discourse. Tone or
intonational variation was best modeled in terms of the f0 realization. Boundary
tones are important indices for the syntactic types of sentences in Paiwan.
On the other hand, three major prosodic aspects of Budai Rukai have been
described and analyzed: stress, pitch accent, and intonation. Stress contrast in
Budai is the most interesting point for the reconstruction of PAN stress. The
interaction between vowel length at penult and stress provides evidence for the
argument of contrastive stress in PAN roots. Regional pitch accent HL in Budai
Rukai is associated with stressed long vowels and contrastive to the peak
prominence on stressed short vowels. Stress variation of Budai Rukai reported in
the current study has provided direct evidence for language contact.
Besides, empirical studies have been conducted to verify the phonological
and phonetic variation in the speech communities and the descriptive segmental
and prosodic features of the two languages. The few phonetic records of the
Formosan languages that do exist will have to serve as the basis for further
research. Phonetic correlates of stress in the two languages have been
investigated. Stressed syllables consistently have higher pitch than the other
unstressed syllables. The position in a prosodic word may determine the vowel
length of a syllable, for instance, phonetic final lengthening in Paiwan. Vowel
length contrast expressed at penult in Budai Rukai have been described and
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verified. The transparency of syllable extrametricality in word-level and
sentence-level of prosodic representations must be part of the Budai grammar.
Furthermore, the current project has provided two more indicators in the
Formosan languages that reflect the contrastive stress in PAN: syllable
extrametricality in Budai Rukai and final stress subject to schwa penult in
Central Paiwan. Prosodic patterns of Paiwan and Budai Rukai have implications
for the reconstruction of stress in the proto-languages. The historical
reconstruction of PAN stress and the prosodic patterns in Paiwan and Budai
Rukai are apparently against the proposals that have claimed the subgrouping of
Rukai with the Tsouic or with the Paiwanic. Extrametricality in Budai Rukai is a
reflex of the historical development of echo vowels. Final stress subject to schwa
penult in Central Paiwan is very likely to be the remnant of the contrastive stress
in PAN. The reconstructed phonemes in PAN, Proto-Paiwan and Proto-Rukai
support the argument that Paiwan or Budai Rukai is an independent branch of
PAN. The current project has provided evidence for the claims that Taiwan may
be the oldest area where the PAN forms are preserved (cf. Blust 1977, 1999; Ross
2002) and the phoneme inventory in Paiwan directly comparable to the PAN
inventory (Ferrell, 1982). Proto-Paiwan retained not only the syllable structure
but also most of the phonemic segments in PAN. On the other hand, loans are
the direct evidence for language contact. Loans drawn from the Paiwan village
support for the argument that language contact may cause phonological
adaptation or even sound change. The language contact between Northern
Paiwan and Budai Rukai is bidirectional. Historical reconstruction of cognates
and synchronic phonological features have provided evidence for the
independent development of Paiwan and Budai Rukai from PAN, and the
innovations shared by the two languages are due to recent contact.
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8.2 Language Continuum
Paiwan and Budai Rukai are geographically adjacent to each other. While
the “Lower Three Villages” of Rukai (Maga, Tona and Mantauran) located to the
north are adjacent to Tsou, Budai Rukai is surrounded and heavily influenced by
Paiwan. Much more studies (cf. Dyen 1963, 1965; Ferrell 1969; Tsuchida, 1976; Li
1977a; Ho 1983) have focused on whether Rukai is closer to the Tsouic or
Paiwanic branch. Onset clusters shared between Maga Rukai and Tsou have led
some Formosan specialists to propose that Rukai and Tsou belong to a subgroup
in the Formosan family. On the other hand, I have shown that both complex
onsets and complex codas have nothing to do with the syllable structure of
Paiwan and Budai Rukai. This is the strong evidence that Budai Rukai should be
not grouped with the Tsouic languages. I have argued that the hypothesis of the
Tsouic and Budai Rukai as a subgroup is not reliable.
Li (1992) draws from lexical evidence to conclude that Rukai is most
closely related to Paiwan when each language is represented by only a single
dialect. It makes a difference in classification whether we treat Rukai as a single
language or not. Budai is chosen as the most representative in Li’s (1995)
wordlist for the Rukai language, because it is the most conservative Rukai dialect.
I have proposed the idea that Paiwan and Budai Rukai is each an entirely
independent branch of PAN. Some innovations shared by the dialects of Rukai
and their adjacent languages are due to recent contact. Here comes the question:
how can we define the position of Budai Rukai within the Rukai language family?
Do all the dialects of Rukai share the innovations with the Paiwanic or Tsouic
group? If Rukai belongs to the Tsouic, why is the onset cluster absent in Budai
Rukai? If Rukai belongs to the Paiwanic, why does the echo vowel occur in Budai
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Rukai? Is there a possibility that one branch of Rukai shares the innovations with
the Tsouic, whereas the other shares the innovations with the Paiwanic?
It is not surprising to the local aborigines that middle-aged Budai Rukai
speakers are able to communicate with Northern Paiwan speakers, but not the
speakers from the other dialects of Rukai, for instance, Mantauran Rukai. Li
(1977a) claims that although sound changes are drastic in Mantaurana, it has
exclusively shared many cognates with Maga and Tona than with Budai and
Tanan. A family tree of the Rukai language proposed by Li (1977a) is represented
as follows.
(1) Family Tree of the Rukai Language (Li 1977a)
Formosan
Paiwanic
Rukai
MTM BT
MT
Maga Tona Mantauran Budai Tanan
Under the family tree illustrated in (1), both of the two main branches of
Rukai, MTM and BT, belong to the Paiwanic group. However, onset clusters
attested in Maga Rukai and echo vowels in many Rukai dialects seem to indicate
the close relationship with the Tsouic group. Given that frequent language
contact has occurred in the tribal communities, the number of contact varieties is
growing much faster than the past decades. Synchronic and diachronic
phonological patterns may have shown drastic sound change in each dialect. I
agree that six dialects of Rukai are the bases for the reconstruction of Proto-Rukai,
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but the concern for language diversity has motivated the proposal of Paiwan-
Rukai Continuum in the daughter language. Within a particular language family
domain, daughter language X of Proto-Rukai and daughter language Y of Proto-
Paiwan have frequent contact, and language X has been influenced by language
Y or vice versa. The linguistic features shared by the two languages, X and Y,
have formed the regional characteristics that distinguish the languages from the
other dialects of Paiwan and Rukai. The proposal of Paiwan-Rukai Continuum is
illustrated in (2).
(2) Paiwan-Rukai Continuum
Formosan
Ruaki Paiwan
MTM BTL
MT M TL B Southern
Maga Tona Mantauran Tanan Labuan Budai Northern Central
Eastern
Paiwan-Rukai Continuum
The term of Paiwan-Rukai Continuum has assumed the closer relationship
between Northern Paiwan and Budai Rukai. Consequently, Budai Rukai share
more innovations with the Paiwanic group than the other dialects of Rukai. On
the other hand, the similar continuum domain could be established for the other
dialects of Rukai and Tsou, for instance, the Maga Rukai and Tsou continuum, as
far as sufficient evidence for language contact is provided. Language continuum
is not contradictory to the proposal of the independent development of Paiwan
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and Budai Rukai. Rather, it accounts for the facts of the growing trend of
language contact in the dialects of the languages.
8.3 Further Studies
How could stress and the other prosodic features of an unknown
language be documented and analyzed? Stress has been claimed to be difficult,
complicated and unpredictable in many Formosan languages. Li (1977a) states
that in Budai three- and four-syllable roots, stress falls on the second syllable. In
disyllabic roots ending in a vowel, stress falls on the first syllable (the penult). In
the Mantauran dialect, stress always falls on the initial syllable, in the Tona
dialect on the second syllable. In the Maga dialect, it falls on the same vowel as in
Tona. Stress is not reconstructed in Proto-Rukai (cf. Li 1977a), as it is not clear
whether it fell on the penult (as in Budai) or the final (as in the other dialects). All
of these have shown the diverse distribution and vague description of stress in
the other dialects of Rukai.
Now that stress patterns in Paiwan and Budai Rukai are clearly described
and analyzed in the current project, further studies should focus on the prosodic
patterns of the other dialects of Paiwan (such as Eastern Paiwan) and Rukai.
After the stress patterns in the other dialects of Paiwan and Rukai are defined
and disclosed, stress in Proto-Paiwan and Proto-Rukai can be reconstructed.
The current project has offered a preliminary description of phonetic and
prosodic patterns in the two languages. Yet, a few tasks remain undone in the
current project. Reduplication has been an issue in Formosan Languages. There
are still a lot of interesting and distinct reduplication patterns I was not able to
address and offer a formal account in this study. Besides, I was not able to show
the prosody in narrative and conversation of Budai Rukai, due to the restriction
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of the corpus. The fieldwork reported here assesses the nature of the sounds of
the Paiwan and Budai Rukai language, though it may be the last to record
systematic data from a reasonable sample of speakers. Some of the recorded data
were excluded from the measurements or analysis simply due to sudden
background noise. Due to the limit number of the recorded tokens, formal
statistical tests were not conducted after the measurements of stressed and
unstressed syllables to verify the preliminary observations on the prosodic
differences. Further field data are still needed for the documentation of prosodic
patterns in the verbal arts of Paiwan and Budai Rukai. In fact, the study of
prosody in Formosan languages is still in its infancy. The ancestral accent of
these indigenous languages cannot be completely preserved without the work on
prosody. The documentation of prosodic patterns has become a prerequisite for
the preservation of ancestral accent of Formosan languages. It is hoped that the
number of study on Formosan prosody will increase drastically in the future. It is
also hoped that further work on prosody will implement instrumental studies to
enhance the understanding of tones and intonation variation of Formosan
languages.
As Inkelas and Zec (1995) have addressed at the end of their article, work
on the phonology-syntax interface has emphasized certain languages or families.
Nevertheless, much insight will be gained from improving the typological
coverage of the database. Language diversity will provide particular illumination
to which many standard phrasing algorithms or parameters are not presently
applicable. The study on phonology-syntax interface and phonology-
morphology connection in Formosan languages is urgently needed, as specific
affix morphemes and construction markers play a role in different types of
syntactic phrases and sometimes do affect the prosodic patterns in utterances.
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Another significant area of research that should inform work on the
Formosan phonology is the micro-study of language shift in the tribal
communities. I have shown a few cases of language contact in Paiwan and Budai
Rukai. Younger speakers of the tribal society are importing and creating new
forms to their indigenous languages. It has been observed in the current project
that there is a lot of free variation in Paiwan and Budai Rukai even for an
individual speaker, more for younger speakers than older speakers. Younger
speakers would sometimes use an alternative allophone, and sometimes not. A
comparison of sound patterns in different age groups may capture the loss and
shift of the linguistic features in the indigenous languages. A more thorough
study of the linguistic variation among different Formosan languages might
illuminate the status of a particular language relative to the larger language
group in the language family tree.
341
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354
VITA
Chun-Mei Chen, the daughter of Ching-An Chen and Yu-Chen Wu, was
born in Pingtung, Taiwan on February 15, 1976. After completing her work at
National Tainan First Girl’s Senior High School in 1993, she entered National
Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. She received the degree of Bachelor of Arts
in 1997, with a major in Chinese and a minor in Educational Psychology and
Counseling. During the following year, she was employed as a Chinese teacher
at Taipei Municipal Ta-Tung Senior High School. In September 1998, she entered
the Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, National
Taiwan Normal University. She was employed as a visiting instructor at the
Department of German and Russian Studies, University of Missouri at Columbia,
Missouri, from August 2000 to May 2001. She received her Master of Arts in July
2001. In August 2001, she entered the Doctoral Program in Linguistics at the
University of Texas at Austin.
Permanent Address: 515 Ting-Liu Rd., Pingtung City, Pingtung 900, TAIWAN
This dissertation was typed by the author.
355